GIFT OF
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
*. .
His Majesty Ahmed Mirza, Shah.
[Frontispiece
Peeps into Persia
BY
DOROTHY DE WARZEE
(Baroness d Hermalle)
With 51 Illustrations from Photographs
LONDON :
HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED
PATERNOSTER HOUSE, E.G.
1913
'
DEDICATED
TO THE READER
44S877
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. — THE JOURNEY FROM BAKU i
II. — FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF TEHERAN . . 25
III. — STREET SCENES 37
IV.— THE BAZAAR 48
V. — THE WOMEN OF THE ANDEROUN . . 59
VI. — RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS .... 76
VII. — GARDENS OF DELIGHT .... 89
VIII. — SOCIAL LIFE IN TEHERAN .... 106
IX. — ANIMAL LIFE AND SPORT .... 129
X. — THE CIVIL SERVICE AND THE ARMY . . 146
XL — EDUCATION AND MEDICINE . . . 164
XII. — THE ARTS IN PERSIA .... 177
XIII. — SUPERSTITIONS 200
XIV. — ISLAM AND THE CHURCHES . . . .211
XV.— A SKETCH OF RECENT EVENTS IN PERSIA . 224
INDEX 239
ILLUSTRATIONS
His Majesty Ahmed Mirza Shah . . Frontispiece
Between Resht and Kasvin . . . Facing p. 12
Our Luggage leaving Resht . . . „ 12
A Caravan of Camels .... „ 20
A Street near the Gate by which we
entered Teheran .... ,, 26
Teheran— The Trams .... „ 38
One of the Town Gates . . ,,38
A Jew Pedlar .... ,,44
The Kasvin Gate ... „ 44
The Bazaar (Interior) .... „ 48
The Palace, seen from the Bazaar . . ,, 48
The Bazaar, showing how the light comes
through the roof. .... ,, 52
The Cemetery „ 52
The Mosque ,,58
The Palace Anderoun Garden . . „ 62
A Room in a Country Palace ... ,,62
The Royal Palace— The Peacock Throne . „ 66
The Marble Throne . „ 66
A Dining-room . „ 72
Tajreesh ... x ... „ 78
Gardeners' Children .... „ 78
A Fanatic ...... ,,82
A Dervish ,,82
The Dochan Tepe ,,88
The Tower of Shah- Abdul- Azim at Rhaye „ 92
A House belonging to a rich Parsee . „ 94
xii ILLUSTRATIONS
The Mushroom Rock at Villenjach, near
Tajreesh ...... Facing p. 94
Ferahabad ...... „ 98
A Palace 6f the Shah .... ,,98
Persian Football . . . . . „ 108
A Hockey Match . . . . . „ 108
Interior of a Castle . . . . ,,114
Sultanabad . . . . . . ,, 118
The French Legation in Town . . . „ 118
The American Legation . . . . „ 122
The German Legation . . . . „ 122
The Belgian Legation . . . . „ 126
The Russian Legation . . . . „ 126
A Group of Persians . . . . „ 134
Pigeon Tower . . . . . „ 134
The Post arriving at Teheran. . . ,, 152
Cossack Barracks . . . . . „ 152
Persian Soldiers with their small Cannons ,, 162
The American High School, Teheran . ,, 166
The American Mission Church . . . ,, 166
Some old Persian Pottery ... „ 184
Mollahs „ 208
A Severe Winter . . . . . „ 208
Rhaye ,,222
The Tower of Silence .... ,,222
The Regent, Nasr-el-Mulk ... „ 226
M. Mornard, Treasurer-General . . „ 226
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
CHAPTER I
THE JOURNEY FROM BAKU
T F you desire comfort, do not travel to Teheran !
There is only one way to do the journey,
and that is as quickly as possible. But barring
discomforts, it is a journey of intense interest, and
I hope that some account of it, of the lives Euro-
peans used to lead in Teheran, and of the life
there now, may not be without interest.
I have spent much of the past six years in
Teheran, and have done the long journey half a
dozen times, always taking the route through
Russia, across the Caspian Sea to Enzeli, to end
with that most uncomfortable thing, a Persian
drive of about two hundred and fifty miles.
During the past five years this journey, which
for Persia is quite a short one, has altered so much
that it is typical of the change that is gradually
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
creeping over all things Persian. One now begins
to believe in trie possibility, at some not too
distant date, of a railway joining Europe and
Asia in the north.
The trip in the small Russian boat on the
Caspian is most amusing. It is used as a sort
of movable club-house for the inhabitants of its
different stopping-places. On warm evenings,
the unfortunate Europeans doomed for some
reason to live for a term of years at Baku, either
as employes of the oil-fields there, or in minor
positions under the Government, turn the boat
into a sort of meeting-place amongst themselves,
where they glean scant news from those luckier
individuals who are on their way to Teheran.
Two long tables fill the upper deck, and the
captain, who has a rather more decent cook than
most, has organized a cheap table d'hote. The
rates are low, and it is refreshing in the hot
weather to sit in the moonlight after the torrid
heat of the day. I sat and watched the arrival
of these Europeans with the keenest interest ;
they came on board with their wives, and some-
times with their children, and either went the
round of the Caspian coast, returning to their
home in two days, or they merely came for
THE JOURNEY FROM BAKU
dinner, and an hour's chat. Of course, all sorts
and conditions of men spoke to me, and it would
have been churlish indeed to refuse the scraps of
comfort which they begged ; just a word of
Europe, just to see the clothes of those who had
last arrived, was enough to interest them — they
only wanted to find some means of keeping in
touch with their past. Missionaries from America,
doctors and consuls and custom officials hovered
round with longing eyes, and I talked to them
all, realizing for the first time the enormous
number of human beings, less fortunate than
myself, who were tied to little out-of-the-way
places such as these.
I learned a lot between Baku and Resht on my
first trip, and on my last I met several of these
people again, and they greeted me with great
pride, as old friends. We talked the tittle-tattle
of Persia, and I told them of what I had seen in
Europe, of flying machines, and the Russian
dancers that were the talk of the hour ; while
they told me of the new pier and the new road.
At Enzeli one has the pleasant excitement of the
landing, and the joy of stepping actually on dry
land. Life in Persia is made up of such small
excitements. My first trip from Enzeli to Resht
3 i*
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
remains in my mind as absolutely different to
the one which has since become usual. In old
days there was no road, it was in process of con-
struction ; and a year later, I believe, I was the
first to drive over it. I confess I prefer the former
more picturesque arrival, but, of course, there is
no question as to the convenience of the new
road. Progress, however, is not so rapid that the
traveller need look for any sort of comfort even
now in a journey to Teheran. Even travelling
with several Persian servants, speaking Persian
yourself, and the servants with a smattering of
English, the journey is to my mind the most
uncomfortable that a European can imagine.
My first journey from Enzeli to Resht, five
or six years ago, was done partly by water and
partly by land. We took thirty-six hours to
reach Enzeli in those days ; we did not come
up to the quay, but left the steamer a little way
out, and were landed in small boats at the Custom
House — if we were lucky ; but it often happened
that an unfortunate traveller was told he must
return to Baku as it was too rough to land, so he
had to repeat his two days tossing on a dirty
boat with bad food and evil smells, and was made
to pay for the trip a second, and sometimes even
4
THE JOURNEY FROM BAKU
a third time. Now, on the new line of Russian
steamers, the traveller has good food and clean
accommodation, and is landed on terra firma
at the end of eighteen hours. On my first trip,
after a wash and a rest at Enzeli, we were given
the Shah's yacht to cross the Mord-ab, or Dead
Water, a small lagoon into which several rivers
flow, giving it an additional name of the Roud
Khaneh, or House of Rivers. There are numbers
of birds to be seen on the lagoon — woodcock,
wild duck and geese are there in large quantities.
Birds migrating from Russia to the south, pass
over the Caspian Sea and find a resting-place
at Enzeli, where it is always warm and damp.
At Enzeli there used to be a palace resembling
a pagoda, built by Nasr-ed-Din Shah on his return
from his first visit to Europe, in imitation of the
lighthouses he had seen there, but this palace
was pulled down last year to make room for
quarantine buildings.
When we had crossed the lake in the Shah's
yacht we changed into a small rowing boat
manned by six or eight Persians who rowed us
up a creek until the water became too shallow
for their oars, and they were forced to leave the
boat and tow us the rest of the way up the river
5
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
to Piribazaar. Piribazaar is a Persian village, where
it seems to rain perpetually. There was no regu-
lar landing stage, the only recognized mode of
landing was to spring on to two stones sunk into
the mud.
There are two rather amusing stories a propos
of these same stones. The Governor of Resht
always met the new Representative of the Foreign
Powers at Piribazaar. There, speeches were made,
the usual compliments exchanged, the new
Minister, of course, wearing his smartest uniform,
and all the attending Persians gorgeous in theirs.
One Representative of a great Power, in full uni-
form, landed on a very wet day in the centre
of one of the stones. The Persian Representative
arriving on his stone at precisely the same moment,
neither was able to proceed, and there they were
forced to stand in their bright uniforms reading
their speeches and exchanging compliments. It
would have made a splendid snapshot, but un-
fortunately a camera seems to have been lacking.
The other story tells of a European who, having
daughters to educate and wishing them to keep
up European accomplishments, sent for a grand
piano. It reached Enzeli safely, and was taken
by boat to Piribazaar. Here it had to be landed
THE JOURNEY FROM BAKU
by hand. Pianos are heavy and Persians are weak :
after much hesitation they attached ropes to this
unknown quantity and hoisted it from the boat
to the shore, but unluckily they dropped it in
the soft mud where it immediately sank a few
feet. The Persians gazed at it for some time
in doubt, but eventually feeling tired, gave it
up as a bad job, went home and left it there.
For two years it sank deeper and deeper into the
mud and ended by becoming an excellent landing-
stage. The purchaser, waiting in vain in Teheran
for its arrival, at last discovered its whereabouts ;
it was raised with much difficulty and despatched
to its owner, who received it with joy. He
assured me it was in as good condition as when
it left its maker, which speaks well for the make.
I played on it myself, and must say I found it
one of the best in Teheran !
After having safely landed at Piribazaar, we were
packed into small Russian victorias and driven
to Resht. My impression of that drive is vague.
All I remember is mud — the walls made of mud,
the houses made of mud, and the people dressed
in different shades of mud colour. I spent one
short night in the hotel. I say short, for my
sleeping night was made up of but a few hours.
7
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
The bed I lay on was a board, and the chosen
home of — were they only fleas ? Anyhow, they
found me the choicest morsel they had come
across for a long time, and I was thankful when the
servants came to tell me the carriage was ready.
A " landau " conveyed to my unsophisticated
mind an idea of space and comfort, and I had
engaged one as being more comfortable than the
small victorias, but on leaving the hotel I found
waiting for me a carriage which seemed to have
descended from a pre-historic age, and which,
like the one-horse shay " which ran for a hundred
years and a day," will probably drop into dust
as it stands.
This much of the journey is in every way
different to-day from what it was six years ago.
The road which was then in process of con-
struction is now finished ; and it is not a bad
road, though it lacks all wayside comforts. The
fact that two thousand Russian troops have been
brought to Kasvin within the last ten days by
motor-cars shows that the one or two motors,
which have till now been the property of royalty
and Russians, have made their impression. Un-
fortunately, unless favoured with a Russian smile,
you must still take the one-horse shay.
8
THE JOURNEY FROM BAKU
On my second trip I found some of the small
victorias awaiting me at Enzeli, and we had a
comfortable lunch in the Belgian Custom House,
where, before starting, the official and his wife
did all in their power to give us of their best.
Here I was filled with admiration for the young
woman, just expecting her first baby, after a
horrible hot summer, living in such a place with
no distractions, lost to her friends and her family,
and with no nurses or doctors nearer than Resht
and Baku. She was pluckily standing it, and was
only thankful that, after seven years of Persia,
she was at last going to find a real occupation
for her time, in the small being expected. That
was her thought — something to do, and some-
thing to live for ; really it was a pleasure to
me when I received a telegram in Teheran a few
months later announcing the safe arrival of a
little girl, and I knew that at least one of the
lonely lives being lived out in Persia was thus
to find contentment, in spite of its enforced
banishment from Europe.
On this occasion we packed into the victorias
like sardines and started to Resht for the first
time over the new road. It was a most lovely
drive, despite the clouds of dust, running first
9
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
through low land, with wild commons and stunted
trees and shrubs. At the toll gate, where we
stopped to rest the horses, people crowded
round, and we got out to stretch our legs, cramped
with long sitting, and also to water our little
Japanese dogs, who were bewildered with the
drive. The people's amusement at the dogs was
quite equal to my astonishment at all sorts of new
sights, such as droves of little cows with humps,
which grazed on the scant stubble in the fenceless
fields near the road, and crowds of tortoises
running in the ditches quicker than I thought
it possible for a tortoise to move. The children
all came to touch the dogs, who drank unheed-
ingly from their own blue enamel saucers. These
saucers evoked envy in the eyes of the men watch-
ing us, and I enjoyed the pleasure I gave when,
on leaving, I saw those stately, Biblical-looking
men cluster round and discuss the beauty of the
saucers that I had presented to them ; for I had
not the courage to keep them myself after the
longing looks I had seen cast in their direction.
We climbed into the carriage again and continued
on our way to Resht. There we went to the
English Consulate, a charming house in a flower
garden, which was such a contrast to my hotel
10
THE JOURNEY FROM BAKU
experience of five years before that I think it
worth a description.
There were big, rather bare rooms, kept spot-
lessly clean, and a comfortable bed. We had a
hot bath, followed by good food, delicious
pheasants with which the woods abound, and
a quite exquisite delicacy called a " hump." It
is the hump of the kind of little cow we had
seen grazing as we came along. It is something
between a ham and a tongue to taste : it is cut in
large slices and salted. At Resht there is fruit
in abundance, smaller than in Europe, but
excellent, and there was also what is a rare thing
in Persia, a good cake. We appreciate these
simple things in Persia, I assure you. Several
Europeans came to the Consulate to see us while
we were at lunch, and I was told of the life they
lead at Resht : work, shooting, and a game of
bridge in the evenings to relieve the monotony,
and that is all. No other distractions, and only
about eight people to whom it is possible to talk.
We met some Russian girls, hatless and riding
astride their raw-boned little ponies, on men's
saddles : nice girls, I was told, who are settled
in Resht for two or three years, and who are a
great addition to the attractions of the place.
ii
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
The Bazaar was like all others in Persia, full of
people who, to our eyes, appeared to be doing
nothing in an extremely busy manner ; groups of
idlers, doubtless fulfilling their daily duties of
barter and sale, but who seemed to be only
smoking or drinking tea. I had an impression of
endless rows of little dark shops, of fruit and
vegetables laid on slanting boards in front, and
men and boys of all ages, dressed in all colours,
lying, sitting or standing, doing nothing, their
great eyes staring at us in silent wonder. They
see us always passing from Europe to the capital
of their country, and I am sure they wonder why
we come and what we do, just as we wonder what
they do as they stand about the streets ; and
we get no nearer to each other than this passing
glance.
I loved the garden at the Consulate, with its
beautiful flowers, and we had our lunch under
a trellis-work of green grape-vines. That garden,
with its masses of colour and its deep black shade,
must be what makes life possible in such a place
as Resht. We had a long, peaceful night there,
and stayed longer than we intended, only leaving
after lunch next day.
The Consul had a plentiful supply of food
12
I .
Between Resht and Kasvin.
Our Luggage leaving Resht.
{To face p. 12
THE JOURNEY FROM BAKU
packed for the forty-eight hours' drive which
lay before us — cold pheasants and ham, besides
a basket of bread and a hamper full of bottles of
boiled water. I saw all the trunks being sewn
into felt covers to prevent the dust getting in,
and they were piled on to a rough cart. The
luggage started on in front of us. I climbed on
to a broad mattress, which had been placed in
my carriage, and which just filled it from end to
end ; I lay extended on this improvised bed,
heaped with cushions, with all my things tied on
around me, and waved a farewell to the group
at the gate.
Till Resht is left behind one does not feel as if
the journey had begun. The heavier trunks are
usually sent from Resht by the post ; but the
things one is likely to want immediately on arrival
are packed in smaller trunks, and travel with their
owners. These trunks, or parcels, or suit-cases,
or whatever one may have, are tied on to the
carriage in every available place — in front by the
driver, or on the springs behind — and have to be
very firmly fastened to resist the jolting they get.
On one occasion, a lady, leaving Resht with a
large family, packed herself and some of the
children into one carnage, and put the rest of
13
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
the family in another with the nurse. The two
carriages went on gaily all through the night,
and stopped at a station to change horses about
two in the morning. The nurse, waking, and
counting her charges, found one was missing : a
little girl of about three years had slipped off her
lap, and evidently fallen out of the carriage while
the nurse dozed. The alarm was given and the
other carriage stopped. The frightened mother
and father, followed by several Persians with
lanterns, started on a search ; they found the
child some way back along the road, unhurt and
sleeping soundly in the ditch. This story has
become so well known that on going to meet a
friend who arrived last year, I was amused to see
her two small children tied fast to herself with
long blue ribbons.
The road to Teheran is a Russian road, and is
kept up by tolls, the traveller paying toll according
to the number of horses he employs. When the
first motor passed over the road, there arose the
question as to how many horses it represented,
and the delight of the people whose duty it is to
collect the toll was great when they were told it
was a forty horse-power. They taxed it as forty
horses, and it cost the poor owner a pretty penny
14
THE JOURNEY FROM BAKU
to reach Teheran. The time the journey takes
depends a great deal on the capabilities of one's
" head man " ; if he is clever at getting fresh
horses at each change and does not allow him-
self to be put off with horses that have just done
the journey, the trip can be comfortably done in
forty-eight hours, but it also depends on the
amount one is willing to spend. A large tip
quickens the Persian's movements a good deal.
The scenery is constantly changing ; first, one
might think one was in Italy, then in Switzerland,
and then finally, with no stretch of the imagina-
tion, find oneself transplanted to Russia, till after
hours of travelling through endless dusty steppes
one reaches the tiled gates of Teheran. Soon after
leaving Resht the scenery is quite beautiful ; the
road winds through a forest of almost tropical
trees and shrubs, as the surrounding country is
constantly deluged with rain. Many of the trees
are very large, their trunks covered with bind-
weed and Virginia creeper, reminding one of
Penang. One might imagine oneself in an un-
explored South American forest, or even an
Indian jungle, and one would hardly be surprised
if an elephant thrust its trunk through the window
of the carriage. The quaintly thatched houses
15
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
lying close to the road, with low, dark doorways,
are exactly like those seen in tropical countries, and,
as it was Ramazan when we passed, all the popula-
tion was asleep during the day outside their houses,
rolled in blankets, on their wooden trestle beds.
There is no system of forestry, and the beautiful
trees are cut down ruthlessly for the needs of the
people. One constantly sees turtles in the ditches
that border the road. They are, however, uneat-
able, and their shells are valueless, which is a pity,
as they are to be found in thousands.
At Koudoum we changed horses for the first
time. And here I must say something about the
coachman, who always on this road changes with
his horses. He is absolutely the wildest creature
imaginable in charge of human life on the box
of a carriage, though one is always struck by
the many politenesses that pass between him
and his friends. Smoking the pipe of peace at
the post station, they exchange the compliments
which form their idea of courtesy. Persians,
from the King of Kings to the most humble of
his subjects, practise this with a refined art that
wearies the patience of the European traveller.
Only after all these have been exchanged, we are
allowed to proceed on our road. Each change takes
16
THE JOURNEY FROM BAKU
nearly an hour, and as there are eighteen changes
much time is thus lost.
From Koudoum to Roudbar the road lies
through a forest of orange-trees ; the oil taken
from them is sent to Russia to be refined. The
finest scenery is, I think, between Roudbar and
Mendjil ; the road follows the banks of the river
Sefid, which is very wide here, and runs at the
base of a ravine, with wooded mountains rising
on both sides, giving it a grandeur all its own.
There was a frightful wind raging. It appears
that, owing to a cleft in the mountains, this wind
blows nearly all the year round just at this part
of the road, greatly endangering the bridge which
crosses the river at this point. The bridge on my
first journey was comparatively new, the old one
having been carried away one night during a
great storm, together with all the mules and
people who happened to be crossing it at the
time. I shivered a little as we passed, thinking
of their fate. Many people stay the night at
Mendjil, but we continued our journey, being
anxious to reach Teheran, and not keen on sleep-
ing in a bed on the pillow of which we could see
a hair of the last visitor.
At Bala-Bala our coachman surpassed himself,
17 2
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
driving down a precipitous incline at full speed,
whipping his horses frantically, standing up and
shouting, until we were certain something unusual,
even for Persia, was happening. Leaning forward,
I saw, to my horror, an old man standing with
his back to us in the middle of the road, and
utterly unconscious of our arrival at break-neck
speed behind him. We joined in shouting to
him to move out of the way, but with no result ;
and almost before we were aware of the possibility
of such an accident, we heard the scrunch of his
poor old bones as the wheels of our heavily-laden
carriage went over both his legs. We got out as
soon as we could arrest our downward career,
and, much against our head gbolam's will, we
insisted on the victim's family being sent for. We
found he was deaf and dumb, and made a living
as a beggar on the road. He was still alive when
we picked him up, and we had him carried by the
villagers (who collected around us to the number
of about thirty) to a hut near the roadside. My
husband asked the gbolam what he should give,
and was told five tomans (about a pound in
English money) was more than enough. My
husband, thinking a life worth more than this
gave five pounds.
18
THE JOURNEY FROM BAKU
We got back into the carriage with great diffi-
culty, being hustled by the crowd, who clambered
on the carriage with angry looks ; and it was only
by standing with a champagne bottle in one hand
and a bottle of hot soup in the other, and beating
their heads and hands, that we were able to free
ourselves. I was thankful then that the coach-
man was the wild man he was ; he behaved like
a brick, and whipped up his horses till they tore
down hill like mad things for the next half-hour.
The bill for the stop at Bala-Bala was :
Persian bread . . ... ... One Toman
Hot water and tea . . . . . . Five Krans
Milk ._ Five Krans
Pilaw . . . . . . . . Two Tomans
Cream cheese . . . . . . Four Krans
One poor old man . . . . . . Five Pounds
I was astonished, as night fell, to see that the
coachman did not light his lamps, and when I
asked the reason why, I was told that he pre-
ferred to trust to the eyes that God had given him,
even on a starless and moonless night. He added
that if I desired the lamps to be lighted my wish
should be granted ; but he would turn the lights
so that they would shine only on the inside of
the carriage. I did not insist after this, as I saw
there was no danger, and settled down to sleep.
19 2*
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
I had not been asleep very long, when I was
awakened by the sound of a deep-toned bell, and
opening my eyes, I saw great shapes passing by.
It was my first sight of a caravan of camels, which
always travels by night in summer to avoid the
great heat of the day, as they come and go across
the plains of Asia to the coast.
I have since found that the particularly melo-
dious bell that woke me is worn by the camel
that has fathered the most children in the
caravan. I lay and counted the camels as they
passed in the moonlight, and there were one
thousand one hundred and seventy-three of them.
The delay caused by these caravans is sometimes
very great where the road is narrow.
We travelled on up into the barren mountains —
such barrenness as I have never dreamed of. The
description which Browning gives in " Childe
Roland to the Dark Tower Came " is an exact
picture of this part of the drive, for the picked
bones of mules and camels strew the ground.
They must die, and when they die they must
lie rotting. The stench at times adds to the in-
terest of the drive. It is an every-day occurrence
that a camel, whose time to die has come, drops
quietly out of the caravan of his own accord,
20
THE JOURNEY FROM BAKU
and walks into the open a little way from the
road. There he is relieved of his pack, which is
added to the burden of one of his companions.
The camel stands alone, knowing that nothing can
save him from his destiny, and thus in solitude
and hunger he dies, an admirable example of the
Eastern attitude towards death.
Each turn of the road leads one to long for
the end of the barren country, and yet still another
sunlit peak of sand and rock seems to rise further
ahead. This lasted till the middle of the follow-
ing day, when we arrived at Kasvin, and entered
the city by the usual Persian tiled gateway, the
sole remains of past grandeur — for Kasvin was
once for a short time the capital of Persia. All
that now remains of the Sophis Kings, who
reigned in Persia at the end of the fifteenth cen-
tury, is the Palace. This was formerly covered with
coloured tiles, but it has been nearly stripped of
these for sale in Europe. The mosque is worth a
visit, but we only had time for a glance at its
outside walls ; anyhow, we could not have gone
inside, for nothing angers the Persian more than
that a European should desecrate the interior of
his Holy of Holies.
The country surrounding Kasvin is laid out in
21
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
plantations of pistache and almond-trees, whose
blossoms make it most beautiful in the spring.
The great vines near Kasvin are supposed to be
the finest in Persia. The streets of the town are
lined with plane-trees, which give magnificent
shade, and add that touch of green so necessary
to remove the impression of bareness that Persian
towns must otherwise convey, where all the
houses only present bare walls of mud to the
view.
One of our wheels came off soon after leaving
Kasvin, and our coachman, being a prudent
person, tied it on with a bit of string. At the
following change of horses, I was amused to see
him remove the string and put it in his pocket,
while the new man retied the wheel with a piece
of his own.
Kasvin is only about fifteen hours from Teheran,
and on leaving it we began to feel that the end of
our journey was in sight. We had now reached
the table-land of Asia, and those few hours of the
journey are but a recollection of dust, dust, dust,
nothing but choking dust. I think what actually
happened to me and to a friend is as good an
instance as I could choose of what this dust can
do in three short days. After my arrival at
22
THE JOURNEY FROM BAKU
Teheran I suffered from what seemed to me to
be skinned mouth. On going to the dentist, he
told me I had caught the well-known Persian dust
microbe, which had settled at the roots of my
teeth, and that had I postponed my visit to him
for six months, my teeth would have dropped
out ! He cauterized my mouth with nitrate of
silver, and I suffered agonies of pain and hunger
for a week. My friend, terrified by this extra-
ordinary experience of mine, also had her teeth
examined ; he expressed astonishment at what
he saw, and taking his little hammer, knocked off
what looked like a rather dark tooth ; it was simply
a lump of mud which had hardened with the
saliva round a small tooth from the dust of the
journey !
We continued for hours across the plain under
the burning sun, the mountains stretching ahead
in an endless range. The dust became so great
that we were forced to put the carriage rug over
the hood, as the front of the carriage refused to
fasten, and it was better to stifle in the dark than
to try and breathe in the ever-increasing clouds of
dust. At five o'clock I felt as if I could not
stand it any longer. Then the marvellous change,
which always comes toward sunset on this high
23
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
plateau, revealed itself to my astonished senses.
A cool wind blew from the mountains, and the
colours slowly deepened in the shadows of the
hills. It was as if freshness were blown with
almost the scent of flowers to our parched throats
and smarting eyes. The dust itself turned to a
golden mist around us ; the peaks of the moun-
tains became rosy till they seemed lighted from
within ; the world was melting away in ranges of
violet and blue till the motion of driving through
this land seemed an ecstasy. This marvellous
transformation takes place every afternoon, year
in and year out, in Teheran. To those on whom
nature has little or no effect, Teheran will remain
as a barren, rugged plain, surrounded by bleak
hills ; to those who are responsive to each change
that passes before their eyes, like the smiles or the
frowns on the face of a friend, Teheran will always
remain the perfection of beauty. Some see the
plains gold-colour, some see them only dust.
CHAPTER II
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF TEHERAN
¥N old days it was the custom, on the arrival
of a new Minister, to send him a richly-
caparisoned horse as a present ; on this he rode
into the town in full uniform, surrounded by
the staff of his legation and those Palace officials
who had been sent to meet him. At one time this
horse had a gold bit and bridle, but in the early
nineteen-hundreds this degenerated to a silver
one. There has only been one golden bridle
given to a foreign representative lately, and that
was to the Russian Minister in 1906. The bridle
is always kept as a souvenir by the Minister.
During the ex-Shah Mohammed Ali's reign, a
carriage from the Palace, drawn by four horses
ridden by postillions, awaited new Ministers near
the entrance to the town. This sounds very
smart, but perhaps hardly conveys a true picture
25
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
of the scene — the knock-kneed horses, the men
in their varied and tattered livery, and the rabble
of out-at-elbows retainers, who followed in the
wake of the carriage.
All this has entirely changed since the Constitu-
tion was established, and the reception of the
Belgian Minister, Mr. de Borchgrave, recently
would not have discredited any Court in Europe.
To a great extent this change for the better is
due to the energy of the one man who has been
able to bring order out of chaos. I told him he
was the maitresse de maison par excellence in
Persia. The horse sent in old days had generally
passed through so many hands between leaving
the Shah's stables and reaching its destination,
that its identity was often doubtful. I have
known one Minister send back three horses in
succession, saying it was not the one intended for
him and was not good enough. Another Minister,
on receiving his horse, inspected it in the court-
yard of his Legation, and turning to the inter-
preter, said : " This is a very fine and costly
animal ; take this horse back to your master
and tell him to pay his debts to the Europeans
before he sends them presents." Since this
incident, the custom of sending a horse has died
26
k
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF TEHERAN
out, and if a horse is sent now, it is as a personal
compliment.
Unimportant people like ourselves, however,
arrive with none of this pomp, and we rumbled
in our big carriage through the town gates of
Teheran unnoticed save by the beggars. The
gates of Teheran are quaint ; the town is very
large and scattered, with broad streets lined
with trees running between walled gardens.
There is a certain symmetry in the shape of
the straggling town and the ramparts encircling
it, which looks as if at one time there had been
some intention of building the rampart in imita-
tion of the Paris fortifications. This vain effort
to copy Europe is often found in the palaces and
houses in Persia, and one sees a distorted im-
pression of Versailles, Saint Cloud, and other
well-known buildings in all the constructions in
Teheran made after Shah Nasr-ed-Din returned
from his first trip to Europe.
The Teheran walls run in zigzags of mud,
with a deep moat from gate to gate. There are
fourteen of these gates, all made of coloured
tiles, no two alike, but all similar, and not one
straight line can be found in either gate or wall
The moat and high rampart run round the town,
27
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
and into this moat the carcases of all the animals
that die are thrown ; it is the usual thing to see
a gorged circle of pariah dogs sitting in happy
repletion after a mid-day meal off these remains.
One can walk round the town on the dilapidated
walls, and meet couples of Europeans, senti-
mentally inclined, at that marvellous hour when
the sun is going down.
I had always dreamed of seeing Persian gardens,
and as we drove through the town, and I saw the
great tree-tops showing over the mud walls, I
began to believe that my dream might come true.
I am glad that I first came to Persia, before there
were railways and factories, and all those things
that go by steam and electricity and make life
hateful in a large civilized town. I cannot picture
the quiet streets of Teheran full of noisy motors,
nor can I imagine the placid Persian hurrying
to catch a train.
The Persian houses almost always stand in
the centre of a garden filled with trees and
flowers, even the poorest people having their own
compound, or at least a courtyard, with its basin
of water in the centre ; the water flows through
the streets and ditches and under the walls into
the gardens on either side of the road.
28
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF TEHERAN
The streets are far from safe, being full of
dangerous holes, owing to the way the people are
provided with water. It is a simple system ;
the water flows from the hills to the town and
down the streets, and by moving a stone here
and there the channels are diverted at will.
Sometimes the outlet is a hole in the carriage
road, sometimes at the side, and these holes are
constantly changing their position according to
the needs of the people living near. Every single
act for which water is needed is accomplished
openly by the roadside ; the washing of linen
and of household utensils is often done in the
street, as well as the watering and washing of
animals, and all those private ablutions which
Mahommed the Prophet ordained for a good
follower of Islam — all are performed in the water
in the street. That the Persian suffers from skin
diseases is not a marvel ; rather is it a mystery
that a single person remains alive to spread
the infections which arise from these fever-and-
plague infested pits.
Where the Europeans live, and in some other
parts of the town, there is an attempt to light the
streets with electricity. The roads in these parts
are slightly better ; there are fewer refuse heaps,
29
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
a smaller number of dead dogs, and generally
a more prosperous look ; but Teheran, as a whole,
may be said to live at night in the mitigated
darkness of a few petroleum lamps, and woe to
the uninitiated who walk or drive unwarily by
their faint flicker.
H We met several smart carriages accompanied
by servants on horseback, from the different
Legations or Government offices, on our first
drive through the town, and I was glad of this :
it gave me an impression that there was a life
apart from what I was seeing, and drove away
the slight depression which the entry into Teheran
had given me, and which even the beauty sug-
gested by its half-hidden gardens had not been
quite strong enough to dispel.
A house had been taken for us by a friend,
but a house in Teheran is to a stranger an in-
soluble problem. As we drove into its charming
garden and were faced with the house, my heart
sank. The house was a great barrack of rooms,
with white walls of sun-baked bricks and cement
floors ; the dust from the bad cement covered
my dress at once ; the mere thought of carpeting
such a place froze all my ardour ; we only looked
at the house, and saw that it would be better
30
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF TEHERAN
to put up at some hotel. But we found the
hotel to be even worse than we had believed
possible. The hotels in Teheran are little better
than the post-houses on the road, and are gener-
ally provided with a gambling hell ; the habitues
of such a hell are Europeans of the lowest class.
We spent the night at one of these hotels, and
having decided that it was impossible to stay
longer, we thankfully accepted the hospitality
which the small Teheran Club offered us,
although I saw that it was only courtesy that
made them allow a woman to become a guest.
Here we lived for several weeks while furnishing.
I had been told to bring no furniture, as every-
thing could be got quite easily on the spot. My
first efforts, however, were certainly not a success.
" Give them drawings," said a friend, " and they
will make you anything you want." I did this,
choosing a simple picture from a catalogue for a
set of dining-room chairs. After an endless wait
I was brought a beautifully-made little doll's-
house set the exact size of the catalogue picture.
I bought my furniture after this from friends
who were leaving, and I soon found that every
single thing, from hats and shoes to kitchen pots
and pans, is bought or exchanged by those leaving
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
and arriving ; though now most of the simple
necessaries of life can be obtained from the little
carpenters' shops which have recently sprung
up to meet the growing demands of the Persians
themselves for European things.
Servants in Teheran are all more or less bad
and dishonest, according to European ideas,
though I suppose that we naturally get the worst
of the lot, and that they serve their Persian
masters, whose wants they understand, better
than they do us. The successful running of a
European house entirely depends on the head-
man, who will train the under-men to suit one.
The Persian of the lower class appears incapable
of doing a thing twice the same way ; he must be
shown each time anew. To bring hot water at
the same hour every day to the same room is
beyond them ; they have no minds, and one gives
up trying to make them orderly, leaving their
ruling as much as possible to a nazir, or major-
domo, who is a more or less educated man and
keeps the accounts ; he generally knows one
foreign language, after a fashion, and acts as an
interpreter.
The only real interest I found while furnishing
my house was in choosing my carpets ; they are
32
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF TEHERAN
the one thing in Persia worth spending any
appreciable amount of money on. The manu-
facture of carpets is the oldest industry in Persia.
The towns where they are made are numerous,
but they are also made by the wandering tribes.
It is easy to recognize, after a short study of their
markings, from which town each carpet originates,
as each has its own pattern ; after I had seen
a few hundred carpets, I could tell at a glance
where one was made. The Persians themselves
prefer the carpets of Kerman ; their design of
garlands of flowers interwoven with birds is
always original and graceful. These Kerman
carpets fetch the biggest prices, some of them
only a yard or two square costing from forty to
sixty pounds a pair. Persians always prefer to
have their valuable carpets in pairs, and it is very
remarkable that these pairs, which are made by
different hands, should so resemble each other
in design. The carpets from Tabriz are very
like those from Kerman ; those from Kurdistan
are woven with a much softer and longer pile,
with lighter colours and more gaudy designs.
The carpets of Shiraz in the Fars country are
distinguished from those of the rest of Persia by
the fact that they are made more loosely, and
33 3
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
are entirely of wool of a superior quality, which
resembles velvet in its texture. They nearly
always represent geometrical figures, usually in
dark red, blue and white. Camel-hair carpets
come from Yezd, as also the cotton carpets, which
are almost exclusively used for the mosques.
From Tabriz and Kashan Meshed, and Ispahan,
come the beautiful silk carpets, which of course
form the most important part of this industry.
These silk carpets are pliable and soft ; and
though many of the new ones are crude in colour,
the old ones are like early Italian fifteenth-century
tapestry. The most decorative carpets, however,
to my mind, are the Turcomans, and no smoking-
room can be complete for anyone who has been
in Persia without that deep plum-colour and
white lozenge-shape pattern covering the divan
or the floor.
Persian carpets are made in a very simple way,
quite in keeping with the simple life of the Persian.
The loom, which consists of two wooden bars
between which the warp is stretched, stands
always in the workman's house, at door or window,
where the light is best ; the workers are always
women and children, who sit in a row on a bench.
This bench may be lowered or heightened at
34
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF TEHERAN
will, as the carpet grows higher, for they work
upwards, the part finished being rolled at the
bottom. Often, seeming to tire, they will cut
it off in the middle of a pattern, adding quite
an irrelevant end, or putting it aside to be joined
later. It is curious that they have no apparent
respect for these carpets which they love ; I
have seen a dealer cut off the border of a carpet
and sell it for a small price, the buyer not wanting
to pay the price of a whole expensive carpet,
and only requiring the border for a doorway.
The patterns of the usual models are learnt
by heart by the worker, but the more complicated
ones are reduced to scale. The very clever
workers copy a pattern by sight, but there is
usually a man who announces the number of
stitches of each colour in a sing-song voice, as if
he were reading a poem. A good worker will
do a bit of about four inches broad and seventeen
long in a day, so it is easy to understand that a
large carpet takes years to make.
Unfortunately the Persian carpet is no longer
as well made as formerly ; less care is taken in
choosing the workmen, and the colours are not so
well combined. Orders from abroad are con-
tinually increasing, and the carpets are more
35 3*
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
hurriedly finished in consequence, the prices
becoming perforce lower as the standard is
lowered. Many of the carpets now made are
rendered valueless by the use of aniline dyes
from Germany — and this in spite of all the
measures taken by the Persian Government to
exclude the entrance of these dyes into the
country. Societies have been formed to try and
fight this growing danger to Persia's finest
industry, on which a great proportion of the
population depends for its livelihood, but their
efforts have hitherto met with little success.
CHAPTER III
STREET SCENES
street scenes in Teheran merit a chapter
to themselves ; they are so amusing, and
so much of the private life of the Persian man
goes on out of doors as a matter of course. All
the lower class is shaved and has its hair cut by
a street barber, and this is one of the few oppor-
tunities one has of seeing the vanity of the Persian.
The Persian thinks it modest to wear his hat
always in the house, as well as the street, except
in the privacy of his sleeping apartment, and it is
only when he is taken at a disadvantage that one
sees how he allows his fancy full play on his un-
protected head. I have seen men with their
heads shaved down the middle from the brow
to the back of the neck, leaving a thick crop at
each side, or a star-shaped place is left on the
crown, while the sides are grown long and the
37
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
back of the head cropped short. I have even seen
one very coquettish young man with curly hair,
who wore his kola a little on one side and allowed
one lock to grow long and fall nearly to his
shoulder, while the other was brushed short
behind his ear, making him look like a Pre-
Raphaelite artist. Hair dye in all shades of red,
black, and brown is constantly used by the men ;
there are no old men in Teheran, for it is not
polite to be wiser than the Shah ; and here
wisdom and white hair are synonymous. The
ex-Shah nicknamed one of the foreign repre-
sentatives " The Angel of Death," because he was
a young man with white hair : on his presenta-
tion the Shah felt a presentiment of evil, and
was deposed soon after !
The bath plays a very important part in Persian
life, and a frequent sight in the streets is a naked
man with a long two-pronged fork, pitching dung
backwards and forwards in front of the bath house,
where he leaves it to dry in the sun. This is used
for lighting fires to heat the water of the bath,
and is considered by the dogs a particularly com-
fortable bed in cold weather. One can always
recognize at sight the people in Teheran who
have just had a bath ; their hair is a beautiful
38
The Trams
Photos &«/]
One of the Town Gates
TEHERAN.
[Sevrugin
[To face p. 38
STREET SCENES
bright red and their nails and hands, toe-nails
and feet, are tinted the same colour, and they
have a cleaner appearance generally. If anything
goes wrong in the house because of the absence
of a servant, it is a favourite excuse that he has
been to the bath.
One is often struck by the recurrence of the
colour emerald green among the passers-by : the
new-comer always remarks on it, and is told green
is the colour of the Prophet, who decreed that
his descendants alone should be distinguished
for all time by the permission to wear emerald
green, as a sign of their connection with him.
He further decreed that his descendants should
be given a tithe from all men who were not
connected with him.
Walking through Teheran and observing the
people, one sees by their clothes how European
civilization is creeping in ; the upper class has
adopted a compromise in many ways, some are
dressed entirely in European clothes, both in the
evening and in the daytime, while some wear a
frock coat with no collar, and with the invariable
Persian kola, protecting themselves by a flowing
abba against the sun, rain, and dust.
The most interesting people in the streets
39
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
are the Dervishes, who have long Biblical curls
and wear no hats ; they dress in white linen or
camels' hair, with a twisted girdle round their
waists and a sheep-skin over their shoulders, and
carry a staff and begging bowl in their hands. In
summer they build a small hut by one of the
great main gates of the town, where they live on
charity ; for Mohammed, though he forebade
them to beg, ordered the people to give to these
holy men who he ordained should live by prayer
alone. They also establish their huts along the
country roads leading to the villages where the
summer resorts are, and one waters one's horse
at their stream, while they wash the carriage wheels,
or pour a pail-full over the smoking flanks of the
tired beasts ; they usually offer a cup of tea to the
coachman, and one gives a small gratuity for their
hospitality : this is the only form of work they do.
The streets of Teheran are full of beggars who
are worse than those in Italy, and more disgusting
and pitiful than it is possible for anyone to believe
who has not seen them ; every deformity, every
flesh-eating disease is laid open to the public
gaze, and one cannot avoid the touch of these
dregs of humanity, who dog one's footsteps in
the street or bazaar.
40
STREET SCENES
When the capital was Isfahan and not Teheran,
begging at one time became such a nuisance that
a certain Shah issued an edict forbidding it.
It was always easier to issue an edict than to have
it enforced, and the Minister told his master
that he was unable to accomplish what he
wished : so the Shah determined to do away
with the nuisance himself. Disguising himself
as a rich merchant, he started out on a tour of
inspection on foot round his own city, but he
had scarcely reached the street before he was
besieged by beggars of every description, who
said they were dying of hunger. He bade them
follow him to the bazaar, where he would satisfy
their cravings. Entering the bazaar he ordered
the gates to be closed, and soon found himself the
centre of a great crowd. He had the beggars
drawn up in a line in front of him and, after
examining them carefully, he chose the fattest,
and asked him why he did not work and earn
his own living. The beggar replied that he
could not find work and was dying of hunger.
The Shah repeated this question to all the fattest
in turn, sympathizing with them equally ; then
turning to the crowd, he said : " I have so kind
a heart that I wish to be charitable to you, but
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
I will not be imposed upon ; I am ashamed to
think that people should die of hunger in my
kingdom, but I must be sure, before I help you,
that you are telling me the truth. There is only
one certain way to do this ; I will open your
stomachs and look inside." The Shah's soldiers
fulfilled this order, bringing him the proof of
the lie in their hands. The fate of these beggars
becoming known to all those outside the bazaar,
and spreading throughout the kingdom, the remain-
ing beggars took refuge in the mountains, and
during the twenty years of his reign no more
beggars were found in the capital. One regrets his
decease daily.
The streets are full of tea- and eating-houses
which are crowded with people ; and sweetmeats
and Persian wares are carried on round trays
on the heads of their vendors, who cry them as they
walk. At all the street corners women are washing
linen, and the tea-house servants their cups and
saucers.
Opposite one of the Palace entrances is the
cannon, where any criminal fleeing from justice
may gain protection from his pursuers if he can
but reach its shelter.
On the outskirts of the town are the brick-kilns
42
STREET SCENES
where the fire-baked bricks are made, but most
of the Persian houses are made with sun-baked
bricks ; these are always to be found in the streets
near a house which is being built, as the work-
men themselves make the number needed from
the mud in the road : it is pressed into small
squares of wood and left to harden in the sun.
Dung is used in Teheran for the horses' litter,
for the roofing of houses and for firing ; it is
stuck against the wall in large flat cakes while still
damp, and dries in the sun. In the summer
it is watered and rolled on the roofs of the houses,
and every roof has its own little stone roller.
The walls of the gardens are high, and prevent
people seeing what goes on within ; but in the
warm weather the women and children come out on
the roofs of the houses and watch the passers-by.
Persians have a strange way of obtaining and
preserving ice : they build high walls so that the
sun's rays shall never touch the ground at any
moment of the day ; the ground is flooded, and
when the ice is sufficiently frozen it is cut out
and stored in pits which are dug near. A dome-
like roof of mud is made over them, and here the
ice is kept until it can be sent on donkey-back
to the bazaars and sold at market.
43
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
One is often stopped in the street by the Jew
pedlars who very soon know the face of a new
customer ; they carry their goods round the
town on donkeys, and are, in reality, curiosity
dealers, plying their trade between the Europeans
and the Bazaar. They invite one to visit their
houses to see curios, but usually there is nothing
to be found ; they are the go-betweens of Persians
and Europeans, and sell on commission things
lent them for this purpose by the Bazaar
merchants.
At the street corners sit scribes on low benches,
with their little lacquer " Khalamdan," or ink-
box, always ready to write the letters of the
illiterate. Every street has its money-changer,
with his little glass case in front of him, who
seems, by its contents, to drive a roaring trade.
The toll which is levied on every beast of burden
passing through the gates of Teheran goes to
the Municipality. At each gate there is a quaint
little room where a man sits taking the toll, and
there is always in the spring a small garden of
flowers, in which he seems to take great pride.
Walking to the Bazaar through the Lalezar,
one may meet the Shah's elephant taking his
constitutional ; and in spring the street corners and
44
A Jew Pedlar.
Photo by-\
The Kasvin Gate.
TEHERAN.
[To face p. 44
STREET SCENES
open places are crowded with resting camels, as
all the caravans pass through the town. There is
a cab service, with Russian cabs, and the horses,
though ill groomed and ill fed, are very fast.
There is a tram line which runs across the town
to the little railway, which seems to flourish
notwithstanding its dirt. It has a separate com-
partment for women, but is only used by the
very low classes.
Crowds collect in the streets and open squares
in the warm weather, to watch the jugglers, who
are really very good, and who can be hired to give
an entertainment in one's own garden.
There are still also to be seen a few mummers
wearing masks, with tame bears and monkeys,
who collect crowds and ask for pence. Now and
again one will still see a snake charmer. Some-
times there is a marionette show ; and the other
day I was asked to take my children to a party
and I found our host had engaged the marionettes
to amuse the young guests. As it is not possible
to stand in the street and watch them, I was
very glad of this opportunity. A small tent was
erected in the garden in front of the verandah,
and the stage, instead of being a raised platform,
was merely a small carpet placed on the ground.
45
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
Crouching beside the tent the owner of the
show talks to the marionettes, asks them questions
like the ring-master with the clown in a circus.
The man behind the tent who manipulates the
wires answers in a squeaky voice for the marion-
ettes. In addition to these two people, there
is also a musician who beats a drum and chants
appropriate verses. The play I saw was supposed
to be a day at the Shah's court. The scenery was
composed of three arm-chairs, the herald appears
in front of the stage and announces that the Shah
is coming, and requests that there may be silence.
Sentinels take their places on the stage ; then
come all the people belonging to the court, and
at the end of the long procession the Shah appears
in a carriage drawn by two horses. Having taken
his seat in the centre arm-chair, and bidden the
two ambassadors who accompany him take the
other seats, the real show begins. To amuse
His Majesty there were wrestlers, acrobats and
dancers, and all performed on the miniature
stage, accompanied by the beating of the drum
and the chanting of verses. There was even
a man who received the bastinado. At the end,
the devil appeared and carried off each marionette
in turn, except the Shah, who slipped out of a
46
STREET SCENES
side door. This show has a great success in the
streets of Teheran, where it is as popular as Punch
and Judy used to be in London.
One can never be bored in the streets of Teheran,
so long as one has any appreciation of the artistic or
the grotesque.
47
CHAPTER IV
THE BAZAAR
JWIOST people say that they have nothing
to do in Teheran ; that there is nothing
to amuse them when they go out, and nothing
to interest them when they come in. Personally,
I disagree totally with this idea. The moment
one steps outside one's house, every sight is so
curious and everything is so new, that each walk
is of interest if one has only learnt to use one's
eyes. You will find no Whiteley's or Harrod's
to tempt you to waste your money ; but in the
shops, which resemble little booths at an old-
fashioned fair, what novelty is to be found !
The workmen make their goods under the
eyes of the passer-by. They are always calm
and placid, these Persians ; if I want to buy
something, they will tell me the price without
leaving their work or even lifting their eyes from
48
THE BAZAAR
it ; it is a case of take it or leave it. If I go away
without buying anything, after having looked at
everything in the shop, they do not seem to care,
but go on impassively with their work.
There are a few European shops where tinned
luxuries and European delicacies are to be found,
but their prices are naturally exorbitant because
of the heavy duties. There are quantities of
second-hand shops, and I have seen my own old
petticoats thrown across a beautiful Japanese jar ;
it is rather a comfort to feel that, though there
are many things one cannot buy in Teheran,
there is nothing one cannot sell. One drives the
quaintest bargains, and last week I gave a jasmin
plant and a suit of old clothes in exchange for
quite a nice little carpet.
Most of the shops are to be found in a street
called Lalezar, which leads across the Artillery
Square to the Bazaar ; but the sensible European
goes to the Bazaar itself when in search of any-
thing. The Bazaar is a little world ; it is roofed
in like an immense tunnel, and is always cool,
with scarcely any light. It is the centre of all
conspiracies and plots, and a sort of gigantic
club-house the members of which have different
political interests ; all the mischief that can be
49 4
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
planned comes from the Bazaar, and all the
rumours, fantastic and otherwise, which disturb
the public serenity, or the poor unfortunate
Cabinet, which is for the moment in power in
Teheran. All criminals, if they can but reach
the Bazaar, are safe, because there it is very
difficult to discover their whereabouts. It is
like a great beehive, with endless cellars and dark
little alleys leading by yet darker, cavern-like
openings to courtyard or house, with always an
outlet hidden somewhere behind, a maze only to
be threaded by the native ; the foreigner usually
finds himself in a cul-de-sac, from which he will
have to retrace his steps if he is without a guide.
One may still see how beautiful the Bazaar
must once have been ; in some parts the roof is
arched like a Gothic church, and the ever-recurring
Persian tiles border the high dadoes of the great
bare structures used as tea-houses. These tea-
houses are surrounded inside by low platforms
covered with carpets, and are always filled with
idlers, who sit smoking their hubble-bubble pipes
and drinking cups of light Russian tea. I have
never understood why, in a country like Persia,
so much liberty is allowed to the lower classes —
in these tea-houses they meet and freely discuss
50
THE BAZAAR
all the current events — while the meetings of the
upper classes are strictly watched. The Bazaar
is like the pulse of Teheran ; from it a clever leader
can take the temperature of the town. In all
times of political difficulty the people close the
Bazaar, as a sort of protest against anything the
Government does of which they disapprove.
There are many entrances to the Bazaar, and
one seems to plunge down into it by a few dirty
steps, as if into a dark cave swarming with
humanity ; one's eyes have to grow accustomed
to its half-light before one can distinguish what
the bright flashes can be which one sees here and
there in the dimness ; then they resolve them-
selves into the brass shops, of which there are
many, or shops where are the workers of white
metal or copper. The different industries are
grouped in their own quarters in the Bazaar ;
glass makers in one, potters in another, furriers
in a third, et cetera. According to the nature
of the industry, the district is either a quiet or
noisy one ; the din in the brass street is deafening ;
the clinking of the hammers on the glowing metal,
the breath of the heaving bellows which are worked
by small boys, the scraping of the saws, all make
one feel as if Bedlam had been let loose. One
5i 4*
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
looks instinctively for machinery to account for
the noise, but of course it is not there. The
street in which one is most jostled is the principal
artery running straight across the Bazaar from the
town to the country, to the big Shah-Abdul-Azim
road ; it is the short cut for all the endless
caravans taking provisions to Shah-Abdul-Azim
or going and coming from Meshed.
To ride through the Bazaar takes twenty-five
minutes, and is really dangerous, but is quite
amusing to those who have learnt the trick. It is
impossible to walk, and one must never trot, but
must keep up a steady hustle, with the horse
touching the tail of the horse in front, otherwise
one is sure to be cut off from one's companions ;
for the crowd at all hours is such that one has
to force one's way through, and by shouting
attract the attention of those in front. The
delight of the Bazaar is just that. Every man
and woman goes there to fldner — one falls
oneself into this oriental habit. Often I have
just missed being rolled over by a camel or mule,
which are taught never to deviate from the
straight path, and would no more pass to the
right or left of you than an express train would
leave its rails.
52
The Bazaar. Showing how the light comes through the roof.
The Cemetery.
\_Tofacep. 52
THE BAZAAR
All Persians in need of money bring their family
heirlooms to the Bazaar to sell. A dozen times
you will be stopped, and some small object thrust
before your eyes, the owner always sure of getting
more from a European than from a shopman in
the Bazaar. An old book, an old ring, a bit of
lacquer may frequently be picked up in this way.
A constant visitor may buy now and again a really
old and genuine curio ; but those going only
seldom to the Bazaar will miss what a constant
visitor will often find. You become known as a
buyer, and they will find out who you are and
bring things direct to your house, where they
will reach you through your head man. It is
generally a woman who carries a treasure hidden
under her black chadur.
The Bazaar is the one place which is full of
women ; here you may see their faces, though
not for more than a minute at a time.
The jewellery quarter is always crowded with
women buying little gold ornaments, which are
commonly worn even by the very poorest classes.
If you look at the hands of the roughest men,
who elbow you out of their way, you will find that
nine out of ten among the artisans and soldiers
wear a turquoise ring, which, for its colour, is
53
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
supposed to bear a charm ; the very poor wear
a blue bead, and all camels and horses have some
bit of blue woven into their trappings. At the
present time, when all are selling, I have bought
some beautiful turquoises for the absurdly small
price of one or two pounds. The jewellery made
is of the simplest description — crescent-shaped
ear-rings with dangling drops, small necklaces of
round gold beads. The tiny clasps, with which
every woman clasps her white veil, are all made in
little dark shops, with a small glass case standing
on the counter beside the worker. In these glass
cases everything which might be saleable is placed,
such as old cigarette-holders, little boxes, spoons,
knives, etc., which the worker has bought as a
speculation. If the jeweller happens to be a
rich man and a good worker in precious stones,
and if he is also ambitious, you will often recog-
nize, lying in his case, old orders, portraits of the
Shah set in brilliants, or gold epaulettes with a
Shah's name in brilliants, which some unfortunate
palace official has been forced to part with. Here
the constant visitor will often find some fine bit
of old European work, such as a French watch,
or an enamel coffee cup, which has drifted from
hand to hand for perhaps a century, till it has
54
THE BAZAAR
finally found its way into the Bazaar. Everything
in Teheran sooner or later comes into the Bazaar,
and everything worth buying comes out of the
Bazaar.
The workers of seed pearl embroidery are also
in great demand ; but the aniline dyes of the
satin on which this embroidery is done are so
crude, that it is seldom of any use save as a curio-
sity, though it is very valuable and takes a great
deal of time to do. Mixed in among these shops,
there are the booths of cotton goods and cheap
European haberdashery, which are so incongruous
in their purely oriental setting.
Leaving the busier quarter, with its hum of
life, one passes into lighter and more empty
streets, where one gets a glimpse of the sky through
the openings in the roof. Here the saddlery and
shoes and other leather goods are made. The
saddles are still of the old high, pointed shapes,
with the stirrup made of wood, which are of rich
colour and design, though they are no longer
adorned with gold and silver as of yore. Carpet
cloths for these saddles are often to be found of
very beautiful old manufacture, and even the
modern trappings used in one's own stables have a
beauty of their own, being ornamented with
55
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
fringes and tied round the horses' necks with a
nice little bow. An ordinary horse in a European
stable is delightfully swathed, like a new-born
baby, with yards and yards of bright-coloured
bands. These same bands can be bought, old
and new, in the Bazaar, and the old ones make a
beautiful border round the top of a dado ! The
Turcoman bands are most artistic, and an old one
is of considerable value.
There are streets of shoemakers in the Bazaar,
and Persian and European shoes are made in the
same shops. The most popular shoe among the
Persian is the ghiveh, which is made of rags, with
a string sole ; they are cheap and comfortable,
and are often worn by Europeans for playing
tennis. I cannot understand why Persians should
prefer European footgear, but you will always
find Persian women and children trying on Louis
Quinze shoes, which they very often wear on the
wrong feet.
One great disappointment is in the lovely
Persian cottons, which come from Manchester
when they do not come from Germany, but which
are bought by the casual visitor as a genuine article.
Common cotton goods with a hideous pattern,
the brighter the better, have an enormous sale
56
THE BAZAAR
among the Persian women of all classes, as they
all wear an indoor shawl of cotton or silk round
their waist. This shawl plays a very important
part in a woman's dress.
Near the brass workers are found the workers
in silver, but there is no distinctive silver work
of Teheran as of Shiraz and Ispahan ; it is of all
shapes and for all purposes, boxes, vases, tea-
services, modern and sometimes old. The Shiraz
work is rather clumsily embossed with figures
and flowers, and is very heavy and ungainly —
the Ispahan silver is engraved and much finer.
The speciality of this silver is the open-work over
glass, which is very original, for liqueur bottles
and flower-vases.
A place closely connected with the Bazaar is
the great Persian cemetery, which lies just behind
it. It stretches out, a dusty square of sand and
rock, with little heaped mounds for graves. No
names denote the resting-places of the faithful,
only a three-cornered bit of turquoise tile laid
flat on the top of the grave, and two larger three-
cornered, sun-baked bricks at head and foot, mark
this primitive bed.
The Persian burial is so simple that its very
simplicity makes its sadness impressive. Carried
57
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
by four of his family, the Persian lies, wrapped in
grave clothes, on a rude stretcher, and is laid in
his last resting-place under a few feet of earth.
The women come on Fridays to the graves
of their dead and sit wailing round them ; they
bring their children, their food and their carpets,
and spend the day in the indulgence of their
grief. A beautiful blue-tiled monument, sur-
rounded by cypress trees, stands just inside the
wall of the Bazaar facing the graveyard ; it is
called Gabra Agha Mosque, and is the tomb of
the father of the preacher in the mosque near,
whose name is the Imam Djuma. This lovely
blue-domed tomb was built about twenty-five
years ago, and is very effective, facing as it does
the desolation of the graveyard.
The Mosque.
[To face p. 58
CHAPTER V
THE WOMEN OF THE ANDEROUN
TNDER the law of Mohammed every Persian
man is entitled to four wives, but the Koran
says they shall all be treated in the same manner.
Any man, who thinks for a moment what a strict
application of this rule would mean in daily
relations with four different wives in four different
households, must realize that such a staff of wives
would become not only a drain upon his purse,
but also upon his tact, his patience and his man-
hood. One understands why it is that, while
revering the Prophet and abiding by his laws as
far as he can, the Persian of the present day does not
take advantage of all the matrimonial privileges
permitted him, but prefers to husband his resources
for the gratification of one, or at most two wives.
The Persian of the peasant class, unlike the
lower and the upper classes, finds four wives an
economy rather than an expense, as he sets them
59
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
to work in the fields, and thereby combines much
profit with some pleasure. The allowance of
four wives often leads to trouble, and on two
separate occasions I have had working in my
house, for three krans a day and her food, an
unfortunate deserted wife. She was forced to
work for the support of herself and her four
children in the house of a ferranghee, which must
have been a sore trial for her ; and one of these
women told me that her daughter had been
deserted in the same manner.
Each Persian garden has two houses in it — the
anderoun, or women's house, the biroun for the
men. The biroun is kept up with men servants
only, the anderoun is served by women. The bath
is always in the anderoun, and I know one old house,
in which there is a marble slide leading into the
bath, in which the Shah's wives used to slip into
the arms of their waiting spouse.
In both houses the luxury is the same, and in
summer both households are moved on donkeys
and mules to the country garden, where the
accommodation is the same. It will, therefore,
be seen that every added wife in Persia is, indeed,
an additional luxury.
No Persian of any social standing allows his
60
THE WOMEN OF THE ANDEROUN
wife to travel abroad. It is forbidden by the
Shah, though permission may be obtained with
great difficulty. If a woman saw foreign lands,
it would put ideas into her head that are bad for
her, and a spirit of unrest would be imparted to
her sons. I do not doubt that the wonderful
placidity that one sees on the faces of most Per-
sians comes from this fact. The wish to see sights
other than those of their native land has not yet
been born in the minds of the women here, and
how can the child have any enterprise, when no
such thought is ever instilled into him by his
mother ? In a household, where the father has
been to Europe, one will find that a certain amount
of curiosity has been aroused in the children. A
few upper-class women have the ambition to
send their children to school, and their sons
eventually to universities in Europe, and I have
met one or two who long to leave Persia with
their husbands. I have been asked question after
question by these few, to whom their husbands
have brought back wonderful travellers' tales,
which they find it hard to believe. One or two
exceptions have been made, in which permission
has been given to an ambassador to go to his post
accompanied by his wife.
61
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
One lady, who became famous for her escapade,
went to Europe alone and without permission ;
she was the daughter of Nasr-ed-Din Shah and
the wife of a great noble, and she was considered
one of the choicest jewels in the Kad jars' crown.
Very happily married to a good-looking man with
plenty of money, she was in no way to be pitied ;
her life was passed in pleasant places. She and
her husband, however, rah through their money
without considering the future, and a great fire
on their property brought about the final crash.
The Princess appealed to the Shah for aid, but
met with a blank refusal ; she therefore decided
on a desperate step. Turning to an Armenian
friend for help, she passed out of Persia disguised
as her maid, and her flight was only discovered
after she had left the country. Her husband was
in the plot and helped her, and she reached Paris,
where she lived as a European. Every effort
was made to induce her to return to Persia, but
she declined to do so, except on the condition that
all her debts and her husband's should be paid,
and that an income should be given them, as
well as an appointment for her husband as
Governor of a Province. Things having been
settled to her satisfaction, her son was sent to
62
u
THE WOMEN OF THE ANDEROUN
fetch her. (Her husband had been of no use
during the negotiations, as, not being of royal
blood, he had no control over her actions.) So
she returned to Teheran, where she still is.
Curiously enough, as a result of her visit to Europe,
she has taken such a dislike to Europeans that
none are admitted to her house.
Persian houses are furnished in such a way that
they give the impression of a general emporium.
There is no system, or apparent reason, why any-
thing should stand where it does, or why it should
be made of the stuff chosen for it. I have seen a
red plush piano ; an advertisement of fish-hooks
in a gorgeous gold frame hung upside down as a
picture ; a drawing-room where the walls were
entirely covered with illustrations from Punch
and the Graphic since the year 1900 ; also a lady's
bedroom, where the walls were covered with
nothing but coloured postcards of well-known
actresses and ballet dancers (with and without
their clothes), that the husband had collected
while in Europe and sent back to his wife ; they
formed a curious background to a beautiful
coloured scroll in Persian writing, describing the
Persian lady's birth and descent, and blazoned
with the name of her father, Nasr-ed-Din.
63
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
I have sat with a family, composed of father,
mother, two daughters and three sons, in an
absolutely bare ball-room, where the windows
had dropped out and not been replaced, and
watched the tutor of the family, a full-bearded
man, dance a woman's dance for my benefit,
while the daughter of the house, dressed in full
Persian dress, played the Dollar Princess with
a hundred mistakes on a tin-kettle piano ; on
the floor, leaning against the wall, sat an Ethio-
pian slave, who had one of the prettiest faces
I ever saw, notwithstanding her sepia colour.
The daughter of the house spoke of her and
treated her as if she had been a favourite kitten,
though she had been brought up on equal
terms.
Nasr-ed-Din, after his return from Europe,
introduced a complete change in the costume of
his country. Until then the women had worn
loose baggy trousers, tied round the ankles, and
a short jerkin-like coat ; but Nasr-ed-Din Shah's
artistic eye was so attracted by the costumes of
the premieres danseuses he had seen in the ballets
in different European capitals, that he issued an
order that all women in Persia should adopt
the ballet skirt. This was done at once ; but at
64
THE WOMEN OF THE ANDEROUN
this inopportune moment the cold weather came,
and the shivering women, to find more comfort-
able clothing for their legs, adopted men's straight
trousers under a funny little short-pleated skirt
of pale blue or rose-coloured calico, these trousers
being made of velvet, cloth, silk, or cotton, accord-
ing to their wearer's means and station in life.
I can only explain the use of the cope-shaped
shawl, which they wrap round their waists indoors
on top of their trousers, by the possibility that
even their artistic taste was shocked at the
incongruity of their very ill-assorted garments.
The frequent readjustment of this shawl, which,
like the trousers, is chosen to please the fancy of
the wearer, allows one to have glimpses of the most
fantastic underwear.
The new European dressmaker just settled in
Teheran was greatly taken aback by one of her
first clients. The lady, who was a princess, arrived
with her waiting-woman to try on her first frock,
for which she had been measured, but not fitted.
She removed her chadur, and appeared in trousers
and a " woolly " ; the dressmaker demurred at
the woolly, saying : " The dress will fit better if
you take the woolly off." The lady at once
acquiesced, removed the pin which had secured
65 5
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
the woolly to the trousers and ballet skirt, and
the three garments fell to the ground, revealing
the lady in a state of nature : which shows that
smartness in the Persian woman's dress is, as yet,
a thing of the dim future.
Persian upper-class women are seldom seen on
foot, or in the streets, and even people who live
in the country know little of their private life.
If one goes to a garden outside the town, one
often meets a closed carriage with quite a caval-
cade of servants surrounding it, and a lady and her
daughters and as many attendants as possible
squeezed into it. One of the few amusements
the Persian woman has are these drives to the
distant gardens, where she can throw back her
veil and feel at liberty to be natural and at her
ease. The foreigner who is used to Persian
ways will instinctively ask before entering one
of these gardens if he is disturbing any such family
party, and if so, he will discreetly withdraw to a
far end of the garden to drink his tea, feeling
that the sight of him will force the women to
cover their faces and spoil their enjoyment.
This drive, or a visit to the Bazaar, is about the
only outdoor amusement that the Persian woman
has. The women will smile and speak to the
66
The Peacock Throne.
The Marble Throne.
THE ROYAL PALACE
[ To face j>. (><>
THE WOMEN OF THE ANDEROUN
foreign woman if she is alone, but the sight of
a man makes them cover their faces and they
hurry away. I would not have it thought that
this apparent horror of the sex proves the Persian
woman a model of virtue ; the freedom with which
all but the upper-class women are allowed to
circulate in the streets leads to the carrying-on of
endless intrigues, and their domino-like dress
makes an excellent disguise. They can leave their
houses for hours at a time without being missed,
and this liberty leads to a degree of immorality
which is difficult for us to imagine. The women
in the streets make a very strange impression upon
one at first ; the silent moving about of hundreds
of black shapes wearing dominoes that cover even
the hands, and long white linen veils over their
faces, with a lattice-work of darning thread for
the eyes, produces a curious ghoul-like effect.
Pierre Loti's name, " les dames Jantomes " gives
the best idea of them.
Before the Constitution Teheran boasted of
what may be called a museum — a sort of treasure-
house in the Palace ; it was a long gallery, with
the crown jewels exhibited in cases in it. At one
end of the room stood the famous Peacock Throne,
which was brought back from Delhi by one of
67 5*
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
Nadir Shah's generals, after the victory gained
against the Great Mogul.
The throne was given by the Shah to Taous
Khanum, meaning Mrs. Peacock ; its value was
estimated at sixty thousand pounds. It is like a
small church, with a railing running round three
sides of it and two steps leading up to it. The
platform, which is of solid gold, rests on eight
legs in the shape of elephants' trunks ; the arm-
chair-like throne stands on the top, its back
finished by a great sun formed of diamond rays
with a huge diamond in the centre. On each
arm of the chair stands a peacock ; the whole
throne is studded with precious stones.
Most of the objects were of great intrinsic
value — jewelled clocks and boxes, china from all
parts of the world, and very beautiful and valuable
carpets. Under a glass case stood a terrestrial
globe in solid gold, with the countries and towns
marked out with precious stones, which is reputed
to have cost two hundred thousand pounds.
In another case was the beautiful tiara of Path
Ali Shah, which was worn by Mohammed All
at his coronation ; its weight of gold and precious
stones was about fifteen pounds. In cases all
about the room there were jars and cups full of
68
THE WOMEN OF THE ANDEROUN
uncut stones and pearls. It is hard to estimate
what the treasure was worth, but it compared well
with the treasure-house in Constantinople which
may still be seen. This museum exists still, but
the treasures have disappeared ; one looks in
vain for the golden globe and the cups of jewels,
and finds in their places mechanical toys, a few
good rugs and china, and many advertisements
of Pears' soap, though the beautiful Peacock
Throne still stands in its place and is well worth
seeing.
We fully appreciated how much the Persian
woman is to be pitied, when we went to our
first Persian wedding. All marriages are arranged
by the families. In Europe, however ambitious
a family may be for the alliance of the sons and
daughters, there are yet limits to what they
expect from them ; and that two people should
solemnly enter into a lifelong partnership without
having had either speech or sight of each other
seems criminal to us. Persian parents have meet-
ings which last for hours, at which they recount
the virtues of their respective children. When
their good qualities have been agreed upon, the
marriage becomes a settled fact. However, in
all countries each ugly duckling is his parents'
69
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
swan, and even when they are sincere there must
be a certain exaggeration in this practice ; think
what disillusion must follow where the parents
are not sincere !
When a marriage is agreed upon, the parents
are satisfied that they have done their utmost
to promote the happiness of their respective
children, and the religious ceremony takes place.
A Mollah is sent for by the bride's parents, to
celebrate it, and the marriage itself resembles a
European one in form, in that the priest asks the
bride and bridegroom whether they willingly
consent to be man and wife.
Before the ceremony takes place a reception is
held which lasts five hours. Two archways at the
end of the room lead into a smaller one; the
bride's mother led us up to one of these, and,
looking through, we saw that the floor was entirely
filled with cushions embroidered with seed pearls ;
and sitting in the middle of them, dressed in
gorgeous cashmere and covered with emeralds
and pearls, sat the grandmother of the bride, alone,
looking like a funny owl with her big eyes and
beaky nose. We bowed and smiled through the
archway and then were settled on red plush
chairs, each behind a little gilt table, and left
70
THE WOMEN OF THE ANDEROUN
to examine the sweets, fruits, salads and nuts
with which the table was laden, and to watch the
entrance of the arriving guests at our leisure.
The guests were ushered in by women slaves
and servants, and shown to their places behind
the little tables according to their rank ; it was
a little like Alice's tea-party, as now and again
a guest would misjudge her rank and have to
move up or down, according to the higher or lower
rank of the latest arrival.
After all were seated, the grandmother came
into the room, clutching her cashmere round her
fat legs, and disclosing the gentleman's nice com-
fortable woollies in which they were encased ;
she took a little three-pronged fork from a table,
and sitting down by us, jabbed the fork into a
quarter of peeled orange, which she buried in the
salt and then handed to me with a smile. I
swallowed the nasty mixture with great difficulty.
This action on her part was the signal for everyone
to begin eating, and we found politeness consisted
in the exchanging of tit-bits from plate to plate.
To pick out with your fingers what you think
nicest from your own plate, and hand it to your
neighbour, is the acme of good manners in Persia,
which shows how two countries may regard the
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
same act from exactly the opposite point of
view.
Eating was continued for two or three hours ;
hubble-bubble pipes and cigarettes were smoked,
and women talked incessantly, but in subdued
voices. There was no chattering and no fuss,
and very little laughter, and what there was was
half concealed behind the hand, as is the Persian
fashion. It was evident from the hush that fell
at each new arrival, that there was keen interest
evinced in clothes. At times these were startling
to a degree. One girl wore an evening frock
with a man's dickey and collar, another had a
spangled lace veil falling round her face and a
dark blue cloth coat and skirt, and the majority
were dressed in European brocades of bright
colours and large patterns. A sacque coat and a
three-cornered shawl, and a stiffened lawn head-
handkerchief is the usual indoor costume of a
lady. The kerchief is stiffened round the fore-
head, and flows over the shoulders and down the
back, being held together under the chin by a
big jewel. Unmarried girls wear their hair parted
and braided in forty or fifty little plaits, while
the married women have it cut in a heavy fringe,
which is often curled on their forehead and also
72
THE WOMEN OF THE ANDEROUN
braided down the back. All women wear mittens
or gloves of various colours, and often men's
evening gloves, and many, if they have rings, wear
them outside.
The bride herself, when she arrived, which she
did after the eating was finished, was led by her
mother across the courtyard and up the steps of
the house from her private apartments. The
dancing girls danced backwards before her, throw-
ing a few flowers, and the family scattered money
in small gold pieces to the crowd of wedding
guests. The bride herself merits a full description.
She was the most fantastic little figure I have
ever seen ; her face was rouged and enamelled so
that it shone ; her eyebrows made one straight
line of black paint an inch broad across her brows,
and she had a heavy black moustache of paint on
her upper lip, which is supposed to render a woman
beautiful in Persia. She wore pale green kid gloves
and a cherry-brocade dress, and carried a dark-
blue striped handkerchief and a yellow ostrich-
feather fan. From ear to ear there hung three
enormous diamond necklaces fastened to her
head under her chin, and looking as if she wore
a helmet.
After the arrival of the bride, the reception at
73
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
the house was over and the religious ceremony
took place.
The Mollah stood behind a curtained doorway,
separating himself thus from the crowd of gaily-
dressed women who surround the little bride ;
he called in a loud voice, asking whether she was
willing to accept the bridegroom as her husband.
After each request her family urged her to say
" Yes," and she hesitated, the idea of this being
that her maiden modesty should not too quickly
succumb ; a second reason for this apparent
reluctance is that a loophole should be allowed
her to escape from the marriage should she seek
a divorce, as she uses this hesitation to prove that
the marriage was forced upon her. At the third
call, however, the bride gave her consent, and
there was a rustling noise like a flight of pigeons
all over the room, as the veils of all the women
present were flung over their heads.
At the far end of the room in which the mar-
riage took place, stood a large mirror, and the
bride, crossing the room with uncovered face,
knelt before the looking-glass, which is always
the last gift of the bridegroom before he comes
himself to claim his wife. A door behind the
bride opened, and the bridegroom entered the
74
THE WOMEN OF THE ANDEROUN
room alone, and crossing to the curtained doorway
behind which the Mollah stood, was questioned,
in his turn, by the hidden priest, as to his willing-
ness to marry the bride. He was asked once
only and answered " Yes " unhesitatingly ; then
turned, and, walking to the mirror, stood behind
the bride as she knelt. It is thus that the bride
and groom see each other for the first time.
The bridegroom stayed but a moment after
that look, and then left the room ; the wedding
ceremony was over.
The bride was fifteen, quite old for Persia, and
she left her home the same day for her husband's
house. But it often happens that children of
eight and ten go through the marriage ceremony,
remaining afterwards in their homes until they
are of a riper age.
In Persia there is no register kept of marriages,
births, or deaths. Each family keeps its own
records, which are usually written in the Koran,
and, like the family Bible with us, is found in
every household.
75
CHAPTER VI
RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
HpHERE are certain anniversaries, sacrifices
and festivals kept by the Persians which
are rather curious, and some of them are
extremely annoying to the European. They begin
by celebrating their new year, or Nov Rooz, on
March 2ist, on which day all Persians exchange
formal visits, and the lower class clamour for
presents ; the servants ask double wages for the
month. One receives small gifts, in the shape of
nasty multicoloured sweets, cheap glass vases
filled with flowering bulbs, and obnoxious cakes
from the tradesmen and the servants, who all
hope for a gift of money in return. One's Persian
friends present one with seed-pearl embroidery on
hideous bright pink or royal blue cotton-backed
satin. I was so bothered with some of these
presents, not knowing what to give in return, that
76
RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
at last I took refuge in saying that my Government
would not allow me to accept presents of any
kind, or to give them either. New Year in Persia
is a great tax on rich and poor alike. At the hour
of sunset, when it is only half dark, the Persians
indulge in their favourite pastime of letting off
fireworks, but naturally they then pass almost
unnoticed.
The inconvenience of Nov Rooz is really
only a matter of a little extra expense, and every-
one is made happy, so it cannot be compared
to that terror of all housewives, Ramazan, the
Month of Fasting. During that month the people
may only eat, drink, and smoke between sunset
and sunrise. All regular service in the house
becomes a penance, for you can hardly expect
a man to do his daily work when he passes all night
feasting ; he cannot do otherwise, as the Persians
at this time turn night into day : and when a
servant goes home to his wife and family at night
(as he always does here), and finds them enjoying
their well-earned food and smoke, how can he
go quietly to bed and sleep through the revelry
that the neighbours indulge in ? It would not be
human nature : so we are obliged to content
ourselves with what work they will do of their
77
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
own accord, and think ourselves lucky to get
anything done at all.
The people are warned of the approach of the
longed-for hour when they make their first meal
by the firing of cannon at the four points of the
town. If one is out riding or driving one naturally
hurries home, for the tightened belts and pale
faces of the servants in attendance remind one
of what they must be suffering, and how they
must be longing for their food. And if, as
sometimes happens, one is very far from home
at the moment, one stops at a chai khaneh
(tea-house) to let them have their drink or
smoke.
I must own that all this is very upsetting to
one's nerves, which are in a shattered condition
before the first sight of the new moon relieves
the strain of the Mohammedan Lent. The first
time I saw the observance of this custom of watch-
ing for the moon to appear, was when I was out
riding in the small village of Tajreesh which
stands on the top of a cluster of rocks, just at the
foot of the mountains. On every rock, large and
small, stood a man, woman, or child, separately
or grouped together, and all the housetops were
covered with families, all with their faces turned
78
Tajreesh.
Gardeners' Children.
{.To face p. 78
RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
upwards, to catch the first glimpse of the silver
crescent, which they were waiting to see come up
over the horizon and go sailing over the mountains
behind the village ; for the sooner they see the
moon, the quicker comes the end of the last pain-
ful hours of Ramazan. I think the Europeans
are as glad as the Persians when that terrible
month is finished.
Perhaps the most disagreeable day to the
European is one in the month of Moharrem, which
is given up to religious mourning. I cannot
say the whole month is so great a trial to us as
the month of Ramazan, but there are a few hours
so very horrible that they seem to be magnified.
On this day the Persians commemorate the death
of their holy martyrs, Hussein and Hassan, grand-
children of Mohammed. All the fanatical
Persians martyrize their bodies in public and go
through the streets of the town in religious pro-
cessions, while the women line the tops of the
bazaars and houses and watch them pass, uttering
lamentations, and crying bitterly, to see the knives
and the chain flails with which the men, bared to
the waist, inflict injury on themselves and each
other, while they keep up a rhythmic motion in
time to the chant, which is more moaned than
79
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
sung by the whole crowd, whether looking on
or taking part in the procession.
Those playing an active part in the procession
are dressed in white calico and move slowly step
by step, cutting themselves with large knives
on the top of their shaven heads. Their faces
and naked bodies stream with blood ; the streets
show a trail of blood where the faithful have
gone through, and, though there is undoubtedly
a good deal of other animals' blood added to en-
hance the realism of the scene, yet quite enough
damage is done to convince the spectator that
there is still a great deal of reality in this bar-
barous custom. The monotonous cry they give
is a constant repetition of the names of the
martyred brothers. Many small children are
carried in these processions, and I have seen some
tiny mites armed with swords bigger than them-
selves, and covered with blood.
The observance of this ceremony was a great
trial to me the first year I was in Teheran. On
the day of the procession my cook appeared,
half an hour before our usual luncheon hour,
with his head bound up with rags and very weak
from loss of blood. I thought lunch would be
preferable if cooked by some one else, so I told
80
RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
him he could go home till the next day, and
contented myself with what the other servants
could cook. The following year I took my pre-
cautions beforehand and gave my cook three
days' holiday, and we lived on eggs and tinned
provisions until the cook's wounds were healed.
During the month of mourning it used to be
the custom to give Mystery Plays in a theatre be-
longing to the Shah, called the Takke-ed-Dowleh,
but this custom is dying out. There are still
many representations, however, in outdoor theatres
under tents in the streets, the actors in these
playing in their every-day clothes. A street crowd
collects in a very few minutes and silently watches
the rough mummers filling their roles.
I once went to a representation in the Takke-ed-
Dowleh, which is inside the Palace : the theatre
itself is a holy place — it was there the coffin of
Mouzaffer-ed-Din was placed after his death. The
building is a vast amphitheatre encircled by three
tiers of boxes ; the dome is still unfinished and,
in its place, there is a canvas top. The theatre
has many exits, and the stage is a round platform
raised about a yard from the ground and sur-
rounded by a broad track, which track is separated
from the boxes by tiers of benches where the
81 6
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
people sit ; the places are not paid for, as the
performance is more of a religious ceremony than
a paying concern. The Shah nominally pays the
expenses, but the strain on his purse cannot have
been very great, as, when he attended the per-
formance, he visited all the important merchants
present, who each made him a contribution.
The walls of the theatre are, as usual, of tiles,
and countless mirrors, which is the Persian form of
decoration for great occasions ; these reflect the
light of hundreds of candles, which stand in glass
chandeliers on tables in front of the boxes. The
boxes on the first tier are furnished with carpets
and are occupied by men only ; those on the
second tier belong to the Shah, and some of them
have wooden lattices, behind which the Royal
Anderoun sit and watch the play ; the boxes
in the third tier are also latticed, so that the
ladies of the highest Persian society may be present.
It was to one of these boxes that we were con-
ducted the day I went to see a mystery play,
but the lattice had been removed. His Imperial
Majesty, accompanied by his suite, honoured the
performance that day, consequently every seat
was occupied.
There are only a few plays which the Europeans
82
RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
are allowed to witness, the real mystery plays
being far too sacred to be desecrated by our
presence. The play which we were privileged
to see was the well-known story of Joseph and
Potiphar's wife. (It must be remembered that
up to the coming of Mohammed, the sacred
history of both Christian and Mohammedan is
largely the same.)
The piece began by a parade round the track
of a military band ; this was followed by a number
of ferrashes, stripped to the waist and chanting
rhythmically while they struck themselves with
their open palms. Then a second military band,
and, finally, the actors on horses and mules. After
passing round the track they took their places
on the stage. Scenery there was none ; the bare
stage being occupied by a large old-fashioned
four-poster bed, a bench, and a hole in the
ground.
In speaking, the actors intoned their words
so that they could be heard at the farthest point of
the great auditorium. The plot of this play is
too well known for me to dwell on it ; it
was fortunate that we knew it so well, as the
Persian rendering made it most difficult to follow.
We were only able to keep our gravity for about
83 6*
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
half the play, and, as it is a sacrilege to laugh,
we were forced to leave the theatre.
The performance is exceedingly primitive, and
the only part that really had a touch of local
colour, was the arrival of the caravan with
Pharaoh's servants ; these rode on magnificently
caparisoned horses, whose necks were hung with
precious stones, and were followed by a string
of camels laden with carpets and rugs as if pre-
pared for a long journey. Then came the climax.
A European dog-cart, smartly turned out, and a
first-class motor-car, inside which sat a man in
a frock coat and a tall hat, who was supposed
to represent the French Ambassador, sympathizing
with Mohammedans for their grief at this anni-
versary of their martyred saints. A messenger
was sent to the French Minister's box to ask him
if this attention pleased him.
As this caravan of Pharaoh's servants passed,
the actors fished Joseph out of the well (wearing
quite different clothes from those in which he
had disappeared into it), and sold him as a slave
to the chief eunuch, who perched him on the
top of a camel and carried him off. Joseph was
a small boy of about ten years old.
The bed, meanwhile, had been placed beside the
84
RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
well, and at this stage of the performance Mrs.
Potiphar came in and put herself to bed. She
then caught sight of the small Joseph, who had
been picked off his camel and returned to the
stage. Mrs. Potiphar, filled with a desire to
attract Joseph, called for her attendants to bring
her beautiful garments, with which they proceeded
to array her : as a final touch, to make her quite
irresistible to the " man " of her choice, she
opened a pale pink silk parasol and reclined under
its protection on the very solid bed. After which
Joseph was coaxed into climbing on to the bed
with some difficulty, and the parasol was lowered.
At this point we hastily took our departure, as
we were behaving too badly to stay any longer.
I afterwards heard the finale was only a filing
past of regiments of artillery, cavalry and infantry.
The Persians think these plays wonderful ; but
one visit to a Persian theatre is sufficient to satisfy
the curiosity of most Europeans.
Once a year a camel is sacrificed to Allah. This
is treated as a solemn act, though the actual
religious ceremony of the present day has lost
much of its old-time splendour. The sacrifice is
made to commemorate the sacrifice of Abraham,
and a white camel, which is very rare, is kept
85
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
for the purpose. This camel is carefully looked
after, and when well fattened and cleaned is
brought before the people. The Shah is repre-
sented at the sacrifice by a Court official, who,
it is ordained, shall be dressed in brand new clothes
for the occasion. He arrives on horseback,
sparkling with jewels, the camel being led behind
him to the Palace to be shown to the Shah, after
which the two proceed to an open space near
the Bazaar known as the Camel Square. The
procession grows very large, and usually has great
difficulty in forcing its way into the square, which
is crowded with thousands of people. The pro-
cession itself is composed of the heads of certain
Corporations, who ride on mules, and who each
have a right to a particular part of the camel when
it is cut up, the head being always reserved for
the Shah ; they wear white aprons with bibs
fastened round their necks, in which bibs they
place the sacred meat which they receive.
The roofs of the houses are black with
women, and the trees filled with men and
boys seeking for the best view. The pestilential
smell of the crowd detracts from one's enjoyment
of the scene, and, owing to its density, we did
not see the actual killing of the poor beast,
RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
although his hoarse bellow reached us. When
the sacrifice was accomplished the crowd pressed
forward to snatch, if possible, a piece of the
camel's sacred flesh. The heads of the Guilds
defended the body of the animal to the best of
their ability, while they separated their own
already-appointed parts ; and then the remains
were left to the people, who strove with all their
might to stain even the tiniest bit of cloth with
a drop of the camel's blood. Those lucky enough
to get a piece of the meat eat it in memoriam.
In addition to this official sacrifice, thousands
of lambs are offered up on the same day, which
has no fixed date, save that it always comes at the
end of Ramazan, the Month of Fasting. The
Persian Government on this day gives fifty lambs
to the Turkish Embassy.
The thought of sacrifice is carried even into the
intimacy of one's own private life. I had lost
a beautiful silk abba, which had belonged to the
late Regent, and which was so well known that
the Jew to whom the stolen goods were taken
brought it back to me eight months afterwards,
when I had given up all hope of seeing it again.
After it was returned, one of my servants begged
to be allowed to explain to me that he had sinned
87
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
against me, and told me with tears that, when
the abba had first been stolen, he had dreamed
a dream in which he had been told to sacrifice
two lambs for its recovery. Being a poor man
he had cheated the Deity and only sacrificed
one, but his conscience troubled him severely,
and he had finally sacrificed the second two days
before the abba was returned. He begged my
forgiveness, realizing that it was his dishonesty
that had caused the delay ! Needless to say, I
paid for the two lambs.
The Dochan Tepe and the fenced slopes
[To face p. 88
CHAPTER VII
GARDENS OF DELIGHT
/*^\NE of the charms of Teheran is its gardens.
These are mostly the property of the
Shah, and it is our pleasant custom to ride or
drive out of town in the morning to one or other
of them, and take our lunch and tea with us.
I was taken to one of these gardens the day I
arrived in Teheran ; and after being cramped
up in a stuffy carriage for forty-eight hours, the
drive was beautiful, through the Dochan Tepe
Gate and a lovely avenue of Judas trees in full
bloom, to a castle which belongs to the garden.
It was built on top of a steep hill by Nasr-ed-Din
Shah, who fondly imagined it was like Windsor
Castle.
Mouzaffer-ed-Din bought a wonderful telescope
in Europe and placed it here ; he used it to sight
the mouflon on the mountains, and having ascer-
tained their whereabouts, would leave his suite
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PEEPS INTO PERSIA
at Dochan Tepe and proceed to Kasr-i-Ferous,
a shooting-box right at the foot of the mountains.
The Castle is more or less furnished, and I
remember being shown the Shah's bed — a red
velvet mattress on the floor was all His Majesty
needed after a long day's shooting.
On the right is a garden with the Shah's mena-
gerie, or, at least, all that is left of it. There
used to be several tigers, panthers, bears, foxes,
and even two lions ; but it is now reduced to a
pair of small panthers and a lynx. The rest died
of hunger and neglect.
Leaving Teheran by the Shah- Abdul- Azim
Gate, one can make two easy excursions to Rhaye.
I have picnicked many a time by the stream
running through the village Chesm-Ali, and
visited the excavations now going on. There is
a bas-relief carved on the face of a rock near
this village ; it was done in the reign of Fath AH
Shah, who wished to leave some memento to
posterity, and who chose to imitate those left by
Xerxes and Darius at Persepolis and by Cyrus
at Kermanshah. From this village there are
numerous rides to outlying gardens belonging
to rich Persians of Teheran. One goes to them
in the early spring, as they lie low on the plains
90
GARDENS OF DELIGHT
and more to the south in the full heat of the
sun, and therefore blossom earlier than the
Teheran gardens. From here, also, one rides to
the Tower of Silence on the spur of the mountain,
where the few remaining Parsees who have lived
in Teheran are taken after their death. Accord-
ing to the rites of their religion, they are laid
upon a gridiron which covers the top of the tower,
and here, under the sky, they lie, till the birds of
prey have picked their bones clean.
The second excursion from the Shah-Abdul-
Azim Gate is direct to Shah-Abdul-Azim itself,
which is the sacred tomb of the saint who has
given his name to the town. It is in every way
a miniature Teheran. This tomb has a beautiful
gold dome, and is a famous pilgrimage for Persians
on Fridays ; it is also a sanctuary for criminals.
Here it was that Nasr-ed-Din Shah was
assassinated.
From the Haniabad Gate there are, perhaps,
the best riding roads near Teheran ; here, by long,
winding roads edged with willows, and beside
fields of growing corn, one may have a three-mile
gallop, and always find a garden in which to rest
and take one's tea. There is a delightful drive
up towards the mountains to an Armenian village
9*
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
called Vannek ; it is, of course, a Christian village
and possesses a little church.
From the Dowlat Gate one drives to Shimran,
which is five hundred feet higher than Teheran
and the summer residence of the Europeans.
From Shimran the excursions become difficult,
and must be done on horse or muleback, or on
foot, as there are no carriage roads worthy of
the name. A favourite excursion in the hot
summer is to Pascaleh, a village hung in a cleft
of the mountains. The day I went, we sent
off the cook with chairs and tables and his cooking
things at five o'clock in the morning, and our-
selves followed on horseback an hour or two
later, before the great heat began. We went
through the winding lanes of Tajreesh, which
end in a narrow stony path, leading in zig-zags
up the lower half of the mountain. Here we had
to go single file, and one admired the sure-
footedness of the little Persian horses ; the one
I rode was twenty-two years old and never
stumbled ! At times the ground was so steep
that we had to cling to the pommels of our
saddles to keep from sliding off backwards, and
in several places we had to get off and climb up
the rocks. We left the horses at a little village
92
Photo fcw]
\_Sevnigin.
FheiTower of Shah-Abdul-Azim at Rhaye.
[To face p. 92
GARDENS OF DELIGHT
half-way up, as the descent would have been
too risky for their knees ; here mules waited for
us, and I should advise those who are not used to
this mode of riding to stay at home. I myself
got off the mule after half an hour, and continued
on foot, not liking to skirt the edge of a precipice
on anything but my own legs. We reached a
tiny plantation of green willows growing out of
the rock, and were delighted to find a dainty lunch
awaiting us here. The things had been cooled
in the stream, and everything was nice and refresh-
ing after our hard climb. Wash-basins and soap,
in a retired spot behind the trees, were a blessing ;
comfortable camp arm-chairs and cushions, and
rugs under our feet, made this alfresco lunch one
of my pleasantest memories of Teheran.
After an hour's rest we started up the gorge
again, the stream from the cascade guiding us to
our destination. After an hour's climb we
reached the waterfall, and here some of the
party bathed in the deep pool under the cascade.
We had had enough for one day, though some
energetic people go to the top of the Tochal
from here. We had tea in the willow grove
before starting down, and I must say that I
was very thankful to get safe home again.
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PEEPS INTO PERSIA
Another excursion worth doing is to what is
known to the foreigners here as the Mushroom
Rock, so named from its peculiar shape ; it is a
huge rock balanced on a small one. It is easy of
access; one rides across the sand-hills beyond
Tajreesh to another gorge, where after a short
climb one leaves the horses and goes on foot,
skirting a spur of the mountains, into the gorge
where the rock stands, balanced over a dry river-
bed. The Persians call it the old woman's rock ;
they think it looks like an old woman's head.
But since I wrote of it there has been a rather
severe earthquake, and the rock has fallen into
the dry river-bed over which it hung. This is
rather a pity, as we used to have tea under its
shade after our ride.
The Iman Zade Salek, above Tajreesh, is very
interesting ; it is built round one of the biggest
plane trees I have ever seen, and is one of the few
mosques one is allowed to enter. It is of the
usual blue-green and yellow tiles and has a very
lovely arched doorway ; from the open space in
front of it one has a magnificent view. This mosque
can be seen a long way off, and makes a patch of
brilliant colour against the red-brown rocks.
By far the best ride during the summer is to
94
A House belonging to a rich Parsee
The Mushroom Rock at Villenjach, near Tajreesh.
[To face p. 94
GARDENS OF DELIGHT
Shahabad, a little villa belonging to the Shah ;
it is situated in a peculiar position right on a ledge
in the mountains, and it gives the impression of
being at the seaside. I have been there several
times with different people, and each time we
arrived in front of the house we felt as if we were
by the sea. I cannot explain why this is, but
the feeling is there. The house seems built on
the edge of the cliff, and the plains stretching far
away give an impression of the sea. The air is
extremely transparent ; one can see miles away
across the plains to Koum. To reach this very
attractive little villa one rides across the corn-
fields to the east of Gulahek on to what is known
as the Sultanetabad road. This road leads from
the Mint straight up to the mountains for about
four miles. It is one of the very few roads in these
parts without stones, and we gallop our ponies
up past gardens belonging to the Shah and the
royal princes, until suddenly the road ends at
a beautiful garden, the favourite summer residence
of His Majesty. The villa is entirely furnished ;
the yellow-brocaded satin curtains match the
furniture, and it all looks quite new. Red mul-
berries are a feature of the place, as in most
gardens here the mulberries are white. An
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PEEPS INTO PERSIA
elaborate fountain is another feature of this
garden and its greatest attraction to the Persians ;
but what tempts the Europeans most to visit
Shahabad is the view. In every room there
are electric lamps with pretty fittings, but of
course all quite useless, as there is no electric
installation and never has been ; but the glass
bulbs coming out of coloured china and crystal
flowers look pretty in the daytime ; and at night,
if it should please His Majesty to honour this
villa with his presence, lamps can easily be pro-
cured ! The house is full of photographs of
Mouzaffer-ed-Din on his foreign tour, and on the
staircase hang panther-skins and other souvenirs
of the chase. It is strange to find hidden away
behind the sand-hills this beautifully furnished
little house built on the edge of a rock.
Persians have always been lovers of nature,
and their poets sing of the beautiful gardens ;
but, I fancy, in the days of Saadi and Hafiz the
gardens must have been better kept, for though
some of them are worth visiting, they are now,
for the most part, cruelly neglected. The Persian
loves to sit on a cushion at his window, smoking
his pipe and looking at his garden, down alleys
of beautiful trees, with water running over blue
96
GARDENS OF DELIGHT
tiles. He likes his flowers to make a blaze of
colour, and he loves the sound of running water.
He has masses of scarlet geraniums up all the
steps leading into the house, and no garden is
complete without several tanks. One garden,
belonging to a rich Parsee, has a huge tank, where
the owner allowed us to go and fish. I caught
in one afternoon over sixty little fish, which made
a good " friture " for dinner.
Nearly all the gardens round Teheran are
looked after by Parsee gardeners ; there is only
one European gardener here now, and he used
to be head gardener to Kameran Mirza, the
ex-Shah's father-in-law. His gardens, one in
Teheran near the Kasvin Gate and the other near
the foot of the mountains, were a blaze of colour,
and the glass-houses well worth seeing. We used
to send there for flowers, as the Prince allowed
them to be sold. The gardener has now left
the Prince and set up a garden of his own, which
is the only place where we can buy flowers in
the winter.
Anyone can visit these Persian gardens. A
few krans to the Parsee gardener, and he will
give you flowers or fruit and allow you to take
your tea in the shade of the trees. His family
97 7
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
sit at a distance and watch you drink your tea,
and come up and get the cake you leave.
The life of these peasants is simple. They live
on the garden produce, and on Friday they lock
the gate, leaving their women inside, and walk
across the plain to Teheran, to buy the few neces-
saries of life which the garden cannot supply.
One soon learns not to go garden-visiting on a
Friday, as the women indicate smilingly through
the gates that they cannot allow one to enter
if they would. The farther away the garden
lies, the more pleasure is shown at the reception
of a visitor ; this detracts a little from the charm
of the excursion, as one excites so much curiosity.
Mohammed recommended three fruits to his
faithful : the banana, which bears fruit at all
seasons ; the water-melon, because it serves as
food and drink to the thirsty child of the desert
(to whom he said : " If thou give a slice of water-
melon to a beggar, it shall be laid to thy
account ") ; and the palm, because it is the
father of all plants, its head living in fire and
its feet set in water. Of it the prophet said :
" Honour thy father the palm, as it is formed
of the same earth as Adam. He who plants a
palm tree will grace the best place in Paradise,
98
GARDENS OF DELIGHT
for it is the emblem of man ; if a man cut a limb,
it shall never grow again." The Persian gardener
has followed the wishes of the Prophet, so far as
he can, by planting these three life-giving fruits.
The banana, of course, will not grow in Teheran,
and palm trees, too, are rare ; but the melon
has become one of the chief supports of life, both
to the peasant and to his beast, in both country
and town. An amusing sight is an old Persian,
sitting doubled up on his heels, feeding his sheep
and lambs, chickens, cows and donkeys, with
pieces of rind of the melon which has just served
his family for their meal.
There are no public gardens here in town, but
all the European children are allowed to go to
one garden, which belonged to the Grand Vizier,
who was murdered in 1907 ; it is now the pro-
perty of Arbab Jemshid, a rich Parsee, who lets
the house to the Persian Government for the
Treasury. The gardens belonging to the Royal
Palace are lovely and well kept up. They were
laid out by a French gardener, who left after the
Constitution was established. The chrysanthe-
mums and roses are glorious, and there is an
excellent tennis-court where His Majesty some-
times plays.
99 7*
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Owing to the great heat and dust in summer,
it is very difficult to grow grass ; some of us have
tried to get a nice lawn for the spring, but it is
a tremendous trouble and expense. The seed
must come from Europe and must be resown
every year, and the question of watering is all-
important. To have a good green lawn, the
ground must be kept practically under water
during the very hot weather ; and if you do not
personally superintend it, you will get no grass.
Some gardeners sow clover, but, of course, that
ruins all hope of good turf.
There are plenty of conservatories in the
Teheran gardens, but instead of using them for
plants that will not thrive out of doors, the
Persian gardener, if left to his own devices, fills
them full of geraniums, which, of course, look
very lovely ; but as they grow out of doors almost
as well, it is a pity to waste the space. My
gardener fills my conservatory with his own
plants, and then tries to sell me the blossoms
for my dinner-table ; when I suggest that I
should like to buy some plants myself, he says
there is no room, so his plants crowd mine out.
Flowers in Teheran are not what the poets would
lead us to believe, thoug.li the wild flowers are
100
GARDENS OF DELIGHT
very beautiful, and the wild roses are more
luxuriant than I have ever seen elsewhere. They
are trained from tree to tree in garlands, and
the Persians have garden-parties occasionally, to
show off their beauty. The " La France " rose
is magnificent in all the gardens ; and in spring
the iris and violet and jasmine make the air sweet
with their perfume ; but flowers in Persia are
never properly cultivated.
There are no good perennials, as the second
year the flowers degenerate ; but I have found
that if one takes the trouble to have out a yearly
supply from Europe, one only needs to plant
them and water them well to have a very fine
result. Leaf-mould is so plentiful, and everything
that is planted grows so fast, that it breaks one's
heart to see so few gardens properly tended.
The fruit gardens are quite beautiful in the
early spring, with their blossoms seen against the
snow mountains seeming to grow from the desert.
A wonderful effect, which I have seen nowhere
but in Persia, is given by the Judas trees, which
are the first to flower, and which outline the roads
in all directions with a blaze of violet. There is
a great difference between the European and
Persian lilac, though both abound here. The
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Persian lilac looks rather like a diminutive mauve
jasmine ; the flowers grow separately down a
stem which has small green leaves, so that the
shrub looks like a tuft of feathers.
One of His Majesty's uncles has a lovely garden
and house near the Kasvin gate, far away from the
European quarter of the town and in a district where
the best gardens are to be found. The entrance
is in a wide road full of water holes, but once inside
the gates it is a Paradise of lovely trees and flowers.
This garden is one which has been well
cultivated, having had in former days a first-class
European gardener. There is an avenue of plane
trees leading to the principal house, and it
branches off in two directions towards the other
houses. These avenues are bordered with
geraniums, and here and there a blue-tiled tank
with a fountain greets the eye. Behind the
principal house is a small lake which is covered
with water-lilies of various colours. I have seen
canary-coloured water-lilies growing by the side
of crimson ones, flame-coloured and white. The
lake is bordered with rose trees, some of the
Marechal Niels being as big as peonies. There
are many glass-houses, which, unfortunately, are
going to ruin for want of care.
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GARDENS OF DELIGHT
In the house there is a large hall, in the centre
of which there is a tank and a fountain. Here
it is that His Highness received us once last year
when we went to visit his wives. This hall is
decorated with facets of mirror and plaster
carvings, and large mirrors are hung everywhere ;
it is divided into four archways, forming the
separate divisions. When we went there to tea,
we found in the first 'room arm-chairs and sofas
in bright-coloured plush, and standing round about
fifty ladies of His Highness's anderoun. They
were all dressed in Persian fashion, long garments
open in front, but held up to prevent the opening
from disclosing what was beneath. For the most
part the ladies were dressed in light-coloured
brocades, and some wore lovely jewellery. They
were not all his wives, these ladies ; some were
his sisters, and some his sons' wives ; but it was
not possible to know which was which, and I
was much too shy of talking Persian to make
any inquiries. Even the servants are not always
distinguishable from their mistresses.
The feature of the entertainment provided for
us was a tremendous feast of cakes, sweets, fruit,
cucumbers, lettuces and spring onions : while one
of the ladies played Persian airs on a piano which
103
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
sadly required tuning. Several of the younger
ladies sang, all different tunes. I knew some of
the younger ladies quite well ; they go to the
school directed by Mile Secousse, and I am on the
committee of it and have to assist at the examina-
tions, so that when I met some of the pupils I
asked them if they had left school, and found half
a dozen had got married since the last examina-
tion. They woo and wed quickly in high circles
in Teheran.
Some of my friends showed me their needle-
work ; they usually subscribe to a French paper
that gives a piece of work every month, with in-
structions how to do it and the silks to work with,
and they work fairly well, only that they cannot
learn to finish off their thread, so that they have
long pieces of silk hanging all over the back. It
does not show, so they think it does not matter.
When left to their own devices in the choice of
a piece of work they find a reel of cotton and a
crotchet hook quite sufficient to occupy their
fingers. They make heaps of little rounds of
crotchet which are of no use whatever.
Sometimes, however, one of the girls gets
ambitious, and with a bit of bright blue or cherry
satin will make a cushion embroidered in silk
104
GARDENS OF DELIGHT
of a contrasting shade with a design of birds
and flowers. Some of the Persian ladies who are
not so civilized and do not take in French papers
copy Persian pictures, and very well they do it.
I have two small pieces of linen embroidered by a
Persian lady which are typical. One is a picture
of a renowned story-teller sitting in his own home
with his wife and smoking his pipe. The lady's
face is done in pale pink silk ; her hair and eyes
are black, her hands pink with red nails, her
frock blue, magenta and emerald green, outlined
with yellow, and her head-shawl is white. The
man is in brown, yellow and blue, and the whole
thing is done in shading stitch. The other piece
of work is larger, and represents some court officials
in their robes of honour slipping off their shoes
before appearing in the presence of His Majesty ;
the colours are very bright, but the detail is really
extraordinary. Unfortunately the piece of linen is
too small to be used for anything.
The Regent's daughter does beautiful needle-
work. I have seen a screen copied from a Japanese
cushion done by her just as well embroidered
and finished off, back and front, as the model.
Fatima Nasr-el-Mulk has also made some pretty
rugs which were designed by her father.
105
CHAPTER VIII
SOCIAL LIFE IN TEHERAN
OOCIETY in Teheran is difficult to describe.
It is made up of every nationality ; there
are about two hundred Europeans, mostly Russians
or English. The question of precedence always
has been, and always will be, a troublesome one.
Persians have different ideas to ours on the subject,
and this often leads to trouble. However, we are
better satisfied lately with the way things are
done.
In the old days I have assisted at dinners where
practically no one was in his right place ; now,
these things do not occur, and there are less heart-
burnings, for, strange as it may seem, there are
people who think that when they have not their
right place at table they are less considered and
have been insulted. It is funny how some people
get a " swelled head " once they have crossed
the Caspian Sea, and consider themselves above
106
SOCIAL LIFE IN TEHERAN
the neighbours who, in their own country, would
be on terms of equality with them. I do not try
to suggest why this should be, I only state a fact.
But in spite of this, which is rather a drawback
at dinner-parties, Teheran has great advantages.
One does pretty well as one likes, the fashions are
very little studied, and the climate is perfect. It
is never really too hot, and although I have
experienced some pretty severe winters here, it
is always so dry that the cold is quite bearable.
Some few people suffer from the altitude, which
has a bad effect on the nerves.
There is practically nothing to do in Teheran,
so we fill up our time with gossiping about our
neighbours. Everyone is carefully watched, and
their doings retailed at " At Homes " and dinner-
parties ; a walk, a drive, or even a ride with a
friend is criticized and condemned ; and those
who object to being the subject of conversation
are obliged to forego many innocent amusements.
Luckily, bridge is much played, and people
who pass their time playing bridge can scarcely
be gossips. It is a godsend, for it fills up many
hours which otherwise would be spent in destroying
someone's reputation.
In the winter, once everyone is settled down in
107
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
town, most of the ladies have a weekly reception.
In old days, everyone sat and gossiped ; news
failing, they invented tittle-tattle, and woe to
the helpless person who was in someone's black
books, not a shred of his or her reputation would
be left; and though no one ever believes the
gossip, still it is unpleasant to be the subject of
converse in every drawing-room.
Now the weekly receptions are really bridge-
parties ; three, four, and even more tables are
arranged, and people get up their own little party
and sally forth to someone's house and there
play bridge, ignoring the hostess save for a greeting
on arrival.
There are a great many dinner-parties in the
winter months, and also a few balls. The Clubs
give balls and sometimes a small theatrical per-
formance, which is a pleasant change.
Teheran is a place where people make mountains
out of molehills, and everything is a grievance.
A picnic is naturally a failure, when spoken about
by those not invited ; a dinner not eatable, if you
happen not to have your right place.
In the summer, however, things are easier.
No one gives large dinner-parties, and bridge-
parties with a small dinner are the order of the
108
It
_^»M^M^MH^^^fi
H
Persian Football.
A Hockey Match
\Tofocep. 108
SOCIAL LIFE IN TEHERAN
day. The hottest part of the day is passed in
bed, and after five p.m. one goes out to tennis
or bridge. A tremendous lot of tennis is played
from March to November, and sometimes even
in December, if it is dry enough. There are
two Clubs in town, and one goes up country. The
German Legation has a good court both in town
and in the country, and the Russian one in the
country is the meeting-place on Sundays. I think
everyone in Teheran plays tennis.
Sometimes it is possible in the spring to get
up a polo team. It is great fun to watch, and
at one time some of us used to take tea down
to the ground and spend a pleasant hour there.
Now there is hockey and football to while away
the time, and in summer the very enthusiastic
play cricket.
It is a pity that there is nowhere to go to spend
a week-end just for a change, but everywhere
is so unget-at-able that a short journey for a few
days is impossible save for bachelors. They, of
course, can get off to the mountains for a day's
shooting, with only a servant and a few tins of
food ; but we women, who have families as well,
are obliged to spend all our time in Teheran and
only move up country for the summer months
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with everyone else. I wanted to go away once
for a few days — my health was not very good
and I needed a change. I was told to go to Lar,
a place in the mountains, not far from here, and
I immediately made my plans and began to collect
information as to the journey ; but when I found
I should have to go over mountains, down pre-
cipices and perilous places on a horse, and that
I should get nothing to eat but what I took with
me and the trout I could catch in the river, I
changed my mind and stayed at home.
In the spring and autumn, however, picnics
and short excursions are numerous, and many
a pleasant day have I spent in various gardens not
too far off. We sent servants in the early morning
with lunch and tea, and when we arrived at the
chosen spot everything was well arranged and a
good lunch waiting for us. All the servants know
how to cook enough to give us something hot,
and I have lunched out of doors in January, so
marvellous is the climate.
One of our amusements is paying calls on
Persian ladies. My knowledge of Persian is limited
to about a score of words, so that if I go to houses
where the ladies only speak Persian, conversation
is difficult. In some houses, however, the daughter
no
SOCIAL LIFE IN TEHERAN
has learnt to speak French, or perhaps the host
is at home and can be interpreter ; but if there
are Persian ladies other than the hostess present,
he cannot enter the room, and I have had to do
the best I could.
I went once last year to call on a lady, and,
knowing she spoke no language but her own,
I asked her son if he could act as interpreter.
But there were Persian guests, so he could not,
and I had to sit for more than an hour, trying
to make conversation out of the few words I
knew. It was not a success.
Persian ladies, when they receive European
guests, prepare a tea as if for a regiment. There
are innumerable women servants continually offer-
ing tea, cigarettes, sweetmeats and fruits. These
servants are dressed in coloured muslins, made
like dressing-gowns, and they wear muslin shawls
on their heads, which cover the back of their
necks. The Persian ladies wear lovely brocaded
gowns, some of them made in European fashion,
but for the most part they are Persian ; long,
flowing gowns which they wrap round them
and hold up with both hands. On their heads
they all wear muslin or tulle shawls. No Persian
woman would allow the back of her neck to be
in
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
seen, and I believe the following story to be
true.
A Frenchman was out riding one day when he
came to a stream, on the edge of which stood
a woman washing clothes. She was clad only in
a loose chemise and her head was entirely un-
covered. Catching sight of the young French-
man, her first instinct was to cover her head and
neck. She had nothing near her except the
clothes she was washing and which were in the
stream, so she hastily raised her chemise and
covered her head.
The Persians have strange ideas once they get
into European clothes. I have seen Persian girls
of seventeen who are still unmarried wearing,
as their very best reception dresses, serge coats and
skirts, with a silk blouse of the same colour, and
diamond ear-rings, necklace, bracelets and rings.
The effect is queer, but some of the girls are so
pretty that really it matters little what they
wear. I am sorry that they will not allow them-
selves to be photographed, but at present it is
impossible.
Occasionally the Shah holds a levee, or salaam,
as it is called here. I have seen levees under
three Shahs, and they certainly have improved.
112
SOCIAL LIFE IN TEHERAN
On the 2ist of March, 1911, I attended one which
was quite interesting. The army was passed in
review by the Shah, and really it has wonder-
fully improved. The diplomatic corps was, of
course, present in full uniform. It is a pretty
sight to see the beautiful horses of the Russian
Minister trotting swiftly through the streets,
with the servants in their blue and silver liveries
riding in front of the carriage, and the Russian
Cossacks behind.
When I reached the Palace, I was escorted by
the Court Ferrashes, or ushers, to that part where
the Regent has his apartments, and where a room
was reserved for ladies wishing to see the salaam.
This room is decorated in the usual Persian fashion,
with facets of mirror and plaster carvings ; it has
seven large windows on to the gardens, and from
here we saw the troops go past the Shah. His
Majesty was in a room parallel to ours, so that we
were unable to see him then. After the troops
had all passed, we went down to the garden,
and then I saw the little Shah for the first time.
He expressed a wish for the ladies to be presented
to him, and we went into a large, bare room
where he was. He was dressed in the classical
costume worn by the Shahs since the reign of
113 8
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
Nasr-ed-Din, save when they wear a uniform
or the robe of honour, that is to say, the sardari
or black frock coat with numerous box pleats and
buttoned up to the neck.
On his breast he wore five rows of lovely dia-
monds, and naturally the diamond aigrette adorned
his hat. This aigrette is the insignia of royalty ;
it is fastened by a magnificent diamond, called the
Daria-o-noor, second only in size to the famous
Koh-i-noor. Fath AH Shah, afraid that his
memory would die out of the minds of his
descendants, caused his name to be engraved inside
this wonderful stone and thus deprived it of some
of its value.
His Majesty wore a sword with hilt and sheath
inset with precious stones.
The Regent, Nasr-el-Mulk, translated for us,
and we were each given some little gold coins as
a souvenir.
The Court officials were all beautifully dressed
in long flowing robes of cashmere, fastened with
pearls and precious stones.
These robes are always a present from the
Shah, who gives them to his Ministers and
favourites. They are fastened with hooks and
eyes of various stones, which denote the rank of
114
Interior of a Castle.
\_Titfneep. 114
SOCIAL LIFE IN TEHERAN
the owner ; for instance, the Prime Minister has
large emeralds hanging from pearl chains.
These robes are said to have originated in the
time of Alexander the Great. When this monarch
took Babylon, he found among the spoils of the
city several beautiful cashmere robes ; these he
took and bestowed on those of his generals he
most wished to honour ; now, however, they are
given exclusively to civil personages.
The Persians all wear lovely decorations. The
highest honour the Shah can confer on anyone
is the Timsal ; it consists of a portrait of His
Majesty set in diamonds, and it is meant to be
worn round the neck. A great many of these
portraits in their jewelled frames are to be
found for sale in the Bazaar. A favourite is not
always a favourite in Persia, and when the Sun
ceases to shine, then why not turn gifts into
bread ?
The size of this decoration and the stones that
compose it vary according to the class given ;
there are three classes. Sometimes the Shah
gives his own portrait, sometimes the portrait
of his predecessor.
Path AH Shah founded the Order of the Lion
and the Sun in 1808. There are five classes of
115 8*
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
this decoration ; the ribbon is bright green, but
sometimes the Shah bestows a red one on the
favoured recipient. This is given to military
and civil personages alike. The Persian very often
wears the insignia in diamonds, and very lovely
it looks on the robes of honour among the tassels
of pearls and emeralds.
Another order much worn is the Order of
Public Instruction; it was founded in 1851.
It is a simple gold star, with an enamelled Lion
and Rising Sun in the centre, and it is worn on
a dark red ribbon. This is given to men and
women alike. A decoration reserved for the
fair sex is the " Sun " or " Aftab " ; there are
three classes ; the first class is given only to
Royalty ; it consists of a diamond star, with the
face of a Persian woman in enamel in the centre.
It is worn on a pale pink ribbon with a green
stripe. The second class is exactly the same as
the first, but the ribbon is smaller ; the third
class is different. The decoration, instead of being
a star with rays all round, has the rays only half-
way round ; it is extremely pretty.
The Shah sometimes gives a present to the
wife of a departing diplomat instead of a decora-
tion, and I have seen some very pretty rings and
116
SOCIAL LIFE IN TEHERAN
other bits of jewellery bestowed by His Majesty
on European ladies leaving Teheran.
There are other decorations given here, or
rather other varieties of the same. Some of the
Royal Princes wear a pale blue ribbon with the
Order of the Lion and the Sun, and some wear
a pale blue with a white stripe. The field-
marshals wear the ribbon in pale blue too, but
with a green stripe, and the Shah often presents
them with a beautiful sword, the hilt of which
is one mass of precious stones. I believe there
are also some religious decorations, but these
are very rare. Gold and silver medals are some-
times given to the intendants and head servants
about the Court, and to some of the Legation
escorts who have been many years in service.
Besides these decorations the Shah confers
titles on his favourites and Ministers. These
titles are called " Lakab," and they replace the
name of the person who receives them. The
lucky man who receives a Lakab becomes the
"Maintenance," the "Grandeur," the "Splen-
dour " of the Sovereignty-Sultaneh of the State-
Dowleh-the-Kingdom-Molk, the country Mameleh
and so on. Thus we find in a single family a
member who is the Maintenance of the State, and
117
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
another the Maintenance of the Kingdom. The
Shah sometimes gives the dead father's title to
the son ; these titles are, however, essentially
personal. It also happens sometimes that a title
having been given to a personage who falls into
disgrace, that title is taken away and bestowed
on someone else. This makes it very difficult
for the European, who finds the titles hard to
remember, and it very often leads to confusion.
Another of our amusements here is a dinner-
party given by an important Persian official.
These dinners are too rare to my mind ; during
the whole of last winter there were only two.
But this summer the Shah's birthday falling on
the eleventh of August, a dinner was given by
the Prime Minister to celebrate the event. It
took place in a big garden to the east of Gulahek,
known as Sultanabad, and as very few of the
Europeans here now had assisted at a dinner
given in a garden, it was the subject of conversa-
tion for weeks before. The cost of a dinner like
this is tremendous : I suppose that is the reason
they are so rare, but the Government bears all
the expenses. To begin with, all the glass and
china had to be bought in Teheran and sent to
Sultanabad, a distance of about seven miles,
118
SOCIAL LIFE IN TEHERAN
and everything went by Tabarkesh — that is, men
who carry the things on large wooden trays on
their heads. The mere transport of the things
needed cost about one hundred pounds. The
reason that the Government has no glass and
china of its own is that all Persians are very fond
of souvenirs, and usually after a big dinner the
servants pocket the china, glass and plate as
keepsakes, or more probably to sell. I was told
the other day of a journey made by His late
Majesty Mouzaffer-ed-Din ; he was on his way
to Europe, and was travelling with an enormous
suite as usual. He arrived at a village, where
everything was prepared for his dinner in a tent ;
after partaking of the meal, His Majesty went
off to another tent, where his sleeping apartments
were. He had barely reached the door, when
everything, even to the tablecloths, had already
disappeared, and the whole night had to be spent
by worried officials in buying back all the stolen
goods for the royal lunch next day.
The Government has large water-holes in the
neighbourhood of Sultanabad, and it sells the
water to the villages round about ; but in order
to have plenty of flowers in the garden for the
dinner on the eleventh of August, the water
119
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
supply was cut off from the villages and all used
for watering the flowers and filling the tanks at
Sultanabad. This was an additional expense
and cost about two hundred pounds, which the
water would otherwise have brought in. I was
told the whole fete cost about twelve hundred
pounds in all, and that two hundred pounds was
spent in champagne.
Sultanabad is about three miles from Gulahek,
and the dust on the road was awful. We all
tied up our heads in thick veils, but even that was
not really sufficient to protect us. But the sight
that met our eyes when we reached our destina-
tion made up for the disagreeable drive. The
whole garden was lighted up with candles in glass
chandeliers and by red and white Chinese lanterns.
The immense tank, almost a lake, in the middle
of the garden was beautifully lit to show the
masses of scarlet geraniums surrounding it, and
there was a boat floating about entirely covered
with red Chinese lanterns. We were received
by the Prime Minister in a sort of pavilion, in
the centre of which was a blue-tiled tank full of
clear water, on which floated masses of pink
roses. This pavilion is all decorated with facets
of mirrors and white plaster carvings, and it has
120
SOCIAL LIFE IN TEHERAN
three storeys, each with a balcony running all
round. We dined in an immense tent in an alley
of plane trees, and there were ninety-four people
at dinner, of which number only about twelve
were ladies.
Towards the end of dinner the Prime Minister
made a speech in Persian, and as he drank to the
health of each nation in turn the band played
the national air of that country. I noticed some
of the diplomats had a difficulty in recognizing
their own !
The dinner-table was lovely, decorated with
pink roses and white tuberoses ; in the open
air the scent was not too strong ; the lighting
was with candles in white glass shades, which
is much more becoming than electricity. His
Majesty was not visible ; it was rumoured that
he was in a tent in the garden, looking on. The
evening terminated with a display of fireworks,
which was very good. In former days the Shah
had a special person, a Frenchman, to make him
his fireworks ; but since the Constitution the
salary would have to come out of His Majesty's
private purse, so the post has been done away
with.
Some of the Legations up country are old
121
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Persian gardens, with houses improved and rebuilt
to suit the tastes of Europeans ; but one can
always trace the Persian in them. The Turkish
Embassy is the finest, but has been neglected.
The French Legation is the best specimen of a
perfect Persian garden, properly tended, that
I know, though it is not Government property.
The house for the Minister is extremely small,
but it possesses a verandah, from which one can
see the mountains — a great attraction, for which
one would sacrifice much in the way of comfort.
The garden is laid out in terraces ; there is an
avenue of trees running from the house towards
the mountains. This is very unusual, as the
gardens here, as a rule, look towards the plains.
Between the trees is a stream, and here and there
a tank. One of these tanks nearest the house is
over nine feet deep. The mountains, snow-
topped even in summer, are reflected in the water,
and all down the avenue are beds of yucca
and bright-coloured geraniums. The stream and
tanks get their water from a series of little water-
falls at the top of the avenue.
The French Legation in town has a very pretty
house, but there is no place for the staff, and they
are obliged to rent houses outside. The house
132
lit!
The American Legation.
The German Legation.
[To face p. 122
SOCIAL LIFE IN TEHERAN
is built in imitation of an old French chateau
with two storeys, and a long flight of stone steps
leading up to the front door ; the entrance-hall
is a beautiful corridor of plaster carvings and
mirrors. The drawing-room, furnished by the
French Government, has a lovely suite of
furniture in Beauvais tapestry. The garden is
extremely pretty in the late spring, being famous
for its guelder roses and roses. There is an
avenue of tall trees in front of the house, and a
tennis-court has been made recently at one side.
The German Legation in the country is the
envy of many of us. These houses are the best
here, because they are newly built ; the Legation
was only finished in 1906. The Minister's house
has large reception-rooms, an unusual thing in
a country where large receptions are not the
order of the day except in the form of a garden-
party. The tennis-court is perfect ; there are
lovely trees all over the garden, and the flowers
are very well looked after ; there are houses for
the secretary and the doctor, the former exactly
like an English cottage, with a view across the
fields to the mountains. There is a blue-tiled
tank in the upper garden, where those who care
to swim may do so, and the water is renewed
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every day. The Germans are very lucky in their
Legation in the country, but in town though
the houses are nice the garden is very small ;
there is, however, a tennis-court, which makes
up for the lack of space for flowers. Behind
the secretary's house there is a wonderful Christ-
mas rose tree, which is a mass of white blossom
in the spring.
The English possess a village in Shimran called
Gulahek, which is looked after by the English
Consul ; it is about seven miles from Teheran,
and the Legation and racecourse form part of it.
The way in which it came into the possession of
the English is rather curious. About forty years
ago an English Minister, seeking change of air,
pitched his tent on the plains above Teheran ;
this tent was a beautiful Indian one, decorated
with embroideries, and the Shah, passing on his
way to Shahabad (a shooting-box high up in the
mountains), paused to admire it. The English
Minister, as in duty bound, offered the tent, and
His Majesty accepted it, and presented in return
the whole village round.
The English property in town is a lovely park,
with houses for the staff ; each house has its own
little garden, and in the spring the members of
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SOCIAL LIFE IN TEHERAN
the Legation can be seen, each having tea on his
own particular green lawn, of which he is very-
proud. The Minister's house is like an old abbey.
Above the chancery is a clock tower covered with
ivy, and it is by this clock that most of the
Europeans who live near enough to hear it strike
set their watches. Time is a difficult problem
in Teheran. At approximately midday a cannon
is fired on the Cossack parade-ground, but the
approximation depends entirely on the soldier
who fires it. We all think he fires it when he
feels hungry, as it is very erratic. Anyhow,
when invited out to dinner, we always inquire
of our host whether he keeps Legation or gun
time. Sometimes there is half an hour's differ-
ence. Neither of these times is ordinarily
correct. Correct time, not a commodity in
request in Teheran, is kept by the Indo-European
Telegraphs, for whom it is telegraphed from
London every morning at daybreak when the
line is clear, so that connection is practically
instantaneous. The difference between Teheran
and Greenwich is three hours and twenty-six
seconds.
The great pride of the English Legation is the
wistaria ; there is a long verandah running on one
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PEEPS INTO PERSIA
side of the house, which in the spring is one mass
of mauve blossoms, and I have heard people who
have been in Japan say that even there they have
seen nothing prettier.
The Belgian Legation is quite new, having
been acquired by the Government in 1908. It is
very pretty, not unlike an Italian villa ; the
house is a two-storey building, with a balcony to
each, and is lighted throughout with electricity.
The garden, though not very big, is very shady
and cool ; the roses in the spring are glorious,
and the masses of crimson ramblers and yellow
Marechal Niels growing up the side of the house
are worth seeing. Leading from the drawing-
room there is a winter garden full of orange and
lemon trees, which makes a cool sitting-room in
the spring. There is also a very nice one-storey
house for the secretary, with an orchard of
apricots. Between the two houses there is an
ornamental lake, with white water-lilies. The
Belgian Government has no property up country,
therefore the Legation rents a house for the
summer months.
The Russian Government was given a village in
1850 by Nasr-ed-Din, and here they built their
Legation, and very beautiful it is. The village
126
The Belgian Legation.
The Russian Legation
[To faff p.
SOCIAL LIFE IN TEHERAN
itself is fairly large, and is very well looked after
by the first dragoman, who makes weekly journeys
round the property to see it is all in order and
kept clean. The Legation itself is very large ;
there is a beautiful park, several houses for the
Minister and staff, a chapel, a well-kept tennis-
court, and a flower-garden in front of the Minister's
house, which the first secretary looks after.
This year this garden is particularly lovely ;
with its green lawns and huge beds of dark red
geraniums ; in front of the house there is a tiled
verandah and a large tank with a fountain. The
Minister's house has a very pretty drawing-room,
which has been lately redecorated ; the walls
and ceilings are white, picked out with wedg-
wood blue and facets of mirror. At the entrance
of the Legation stands a statue of M. Griboedov,
a former Minister, who was murdered in Persia.
The Russians have owned a Legation in Teheran
since 1860; unfortunately since it was built
Teheran has developed very much in its direc-
tion ; in 1860 it was right at the end of the town ;
it is now almost in the centre, and to reach the
Legation one has to drive through a part of the
Bazaar. The garden of the Russian Legation
is at its best in the early spring, when the violets
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PEEPS INTO PERSIA
grow in great profusion ; there used to be a tennis-
court, but it has been transformed lately into a
drilling ground for the Legation guard. The
Minister's house has a lovely ball-room, and the
whole building is lighted by electricity. When
the Minister gives a ball the whole place looks
like fairyland.
The houses for the staff form the wings of the
Minister's house. There is also a chapel, and a
house for the priest. The Cossack Brigade has
a parade-ground half-way between Teheran and
the Shimran (a district comprising, among other
villages, the Russian Zergendeh and the English
Gulahek) ; behind the parade-ground there are
several houses, where the Russian officers and their
wives pass the summer months. It is rather hot
there, and infested with mosquitoes ; but, at any
rate, it is cooler and less dusty than Teheran.
128
CHAPTER IX
ANIMAL LIFE AND SPORT
TN thinking of the Persian people, it is impossible
to separate them in one's mind from their
friend and support in times of joy and sorrow —
the patient, long-suffering camel. During the
whole of my stay in Teheran I have been
fascinated to watch the life and habits of this
animal ; his calm, supercilious disregard of all
things human, his simple life and food, and his
indifference to climate and change. He is the
only animal I have ever seen who looks as if he
considers a human being a negligible quantity.
One of my amusements in Teheran has been
to stop and watch the camels being fed, which is
always done at sunset in the open plain, at the
caravans near the town. It is most interesting
to see the business of the camp going on at the
end of the day, when the tired men and beasts
come to a halt ; with their packs laid round them
129 9
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
on the plain, the camels form themselves into
little circles of eight or ten, their heads turned
to the middle, and sink to the ground on their
knees of their own accord, the man who is to
feed them standing in the centre with a huge bag
of food. This food looks like sticky white dough,
and is rolled into big soft balls, about the size
of a croquet ball, which he holds against the palms
of his outspread hands ; the beast and the man
press towards each other, for the man seems to
have to push the ball and help the camel to get
it down its throat. The circles of animals give
little guttural cries of impatience and keep turn-
ing their heads, till the men come and the food
is served, shuffling close round the man on their
knees, and nosing him and squeezing him in
their excitement. They get a surprisingly small
quantity of this food in comparison with their
great bulk, and after being fed are turned loose,
without their packs, to graze on the scant crop of
thistlelike grass which, I believe, is called camel-
thorn. They seem to enjoy it ; it is also dried
and used by the Persians for firing.
In the spring the camels are turned loose in
the plains and on the low hills in charge of a camel-
herd, to give birth to their young ; the mothers
I3o
ANIMAL LIFE AND SPORT
are left with the young ones, till they are old
enough to follow their parents. The camel has
never lost his sense of freedom or become a
domestic animal, perhaps because his life is so
much respected by the Persians, whose chief
support he has become. Sometimes Persians
arrange a camel fight — in reality a duel between
two male camels for the female. The lady is
allowed no choice in the matter ; she is intro-
duced to her two admirers and then removed
from the arena, and the males fight it out, the
victor carrying off the prize.
The camel's companions in bondage are mules
and donkeys ; the former are animals with which
the foreigner has a great deal to do, for it is they
who transport one's entire household goods
to the country. They are owned in droves by
muleteers, who hire them out as they are required.
The livelihood of many Persians depends on the
health of their mules, and a sickness among them
causes much poverty. A very fine mule fetches a
high price, and much money is spent by the upper
class on the saddle-cloths and bridles for those
reserved for riding. A rich man's caravan of mules
is a fine sight. For long journeys, the women
travel in a sort of glorified, double donkey-basket
131 9*
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
made of thin lathes of wood, like an oblong cage
with an open front and a white linen top. These
cages are slung in pairs on the mule's back.
If the camel is the Persian's friend, the donkey
is his slave. Poor little donkeys ! I have often
pitied them as they limped along. The dust
in Persia is so great that every donkey has his
nose slit up about two inches, to make it possible
for him to breathe on the caravan roads. The
donkeys, like the mules, are owned by drivers,
and hired out. Everything that is too small for
a mule or camel is carried on a donkey for long
distances. They carry all the market produce
from village to village — for there are no country
carts ; thus the villagers high up on the mountains
can get the provisions necessary to carry them
through the severe winter. Existence would not
be possible for them, were it not for these sure-
footed little beasts of burden.
Another great interest to me has been to
watch the life of the birds on the road. They
are a world by themselves ; blue jays, wagtails,
crimson orioles, hoopoes, storks, herons, wood-
peckers, eagles, quails, partridges, wild pigeons,
blue finches, all live and nest in the trees along the
roads and in the gardens dotting the plains, besides
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ANIMAL LIFE AND SPORT
the hawks, crows and magpies, with which the
country swarms.
The hoopoe is the forerunner of spring in
Teheran, and the first sight of the dear little
creature brings delight to the household ; it
knows no fear, and will hop along a foot or two
in front of one down the garden path, with its
crest held high and its graceful form moving just
beyond one's reach. The soul of Fatima, Moham-
med's daughter, is supposed to have passed into
the hoopoe ; Fatima's spirit must have been the
daintiest of its kind, for a more charming creature
to watch than this bird will be difficult to find.
The bullfinch is made a pet of in Persia, where
they are caught in great numbers. I have bought
thirty or forty in a cage from a peasant on the
road for a few shillings, just to give myself the
pleasure of letting them go free. Quail are
caught by the whole population in small butter-
fly nets, and are usually fattened for the table
in one's poultry-yard. The heron will drop over
one's garden wall and fish for his dinner of gold
fish as one sits sewing under a tree in the spring.
The wild swan is brought now and then as a
delicacy to be served at dinner. The royal
partridge is another great delicacy in Persia ;
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it is a little larger than a hen pheasant, and comes
from the high mountains. The blue jay is
magnificent in its colouring, and for years I have
resisted the temptation to order enough to make
myself a stole and muff and hat of this beautiful
bird, which would cost but a few krans ; I have
tried in vain to convince myself that it would
be a kinder death than the one they are likely to
meet with, when I have seen their battered little
remains lying on the sand, where they have been
dropped from the talons of their natural enemy
the hawk.
The nightingale, the subject of poetical rhap-
sodies in all lands, makes such a noise when he is
at home in Persia, that one is almost inclined
to end by disliking him. I have even heard some-
one remark : " He really is a beastly bird."
In the spring birds in cages hang outside all the
houses, and the servants asked me to allow them
to hang theirs during the winter in my orange
trees. Love of birds seems to have endured here
through all time.
Wild pigeons flocked round Teheran in such
quantities in the old days, that large circular
towers were built outside the town, where they
used to roost ; the provident Persian collected
134
A Group of Persians.
Pigeon Tower.
[To fate p. 134
ANIMAL LIFE AND SPORT
the guano for manure. The pigeons have been
so massacred of late years, that the towers, which
still go by the old name of " Pigeon Towers,"
have fallen into disuse and the industry has died
out in Teheran ; in Ispahan, however, I believe
it still flourishes.
It is to be hoped that a new rule, which makes
a gun licence necessary, will prevent the indis-
criminate butchery of the pigeon, which has
hitherto been uncontrolled.
The owls are a delight in the garden in summer ;
their long, soft cooing call from tree to tree —
the call, as the Persians say, of one lost soul to
another — suits the warm air, and the moonlight
flooding the garden, and their fluffy, ball-like
bodies, plumping down in the light of the lamps
while one is dining in a tent, is a distraction
as charming as unexpected. To help the poor
bewildered little bird back into the dark again, is
the least one can do.
One of the terrors of the place in summer is
the bat, both inside the house and out ; another
is the tarantula, which drops down unexpectedly
from the doorway or ceiling, an opalescent soft
body with moving legs, always turning up where
you least wish to find him. Scorpions and
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centipedes, these latter at least an inch long,
add another terror to country life.
The flies are a pest, and if one has the mis-
fortune to have stables near the house it is im-
possible to get rid of them. The wasps are even
worse ; and Punch's picture of a family at lunch
cutting wasps in two may only be a joke in
England, but in my house here last summer it
was a fact, as we found it the easiest mode of
execution. The only thing I found to keep
wasps quiet while I ate was raw meat on a plate
near the dinner table.
Bees are carefully cultivated in the villages
near Teheran, and Tajreesh honey is the nicest
I have ever eaten. Persians share the European
superstition that all one's secrets must be told to
the bees, or ill-luck will fall on the house where
they are kept.
The ants in Teheran are of every description,
and the sand-lions live in thousands near the ant-
hills along the roads. They make a house like
a thimble upside-down, sunk in the sand, and
the sand-lion lies inside, in wait for the unwary
ant, who may happen to cross the opening to it.
He stretches up his skeleton claw and clasps the
intruder, when he feels the grains of sand slip
136
ANIMAL LIFE AND SPORT
down on to him from the feet of the moving
ant above.
The absence of fish is really quite a serious
question for a housekeeper, who has to have a
made-up dish to replace this course at dinner.
Lar, a village about two days' journey from
Teheran, is the nearest place where trout abound
in the streams, and this fish may be bought in
the Bazaar, dried, or what is called fresh, but
unless one sends a man specially for it to Lar
it is never good. One can make an arrange-
ment also with people in Enzeli to have a weekly
service of fish by the Persian post, and a good deal
of frozen salmon and badly dried Caspian fish can
be had in the Bazaar, but it is very nasty.
The caviare industry is larger on the Caspian
than seems generally to be known ; I passed a
ship coming here whose cargo of caviare was
valued at twenty thousand pounds sterling. One
would think that caviare would be cheap and
plentiful in a town like Teheran, which is only
two and a half days' journey from the sea ; but,
although the caviare is packed at Enzeli, on
Persian soil, it is a monopoly given to big Euro-
pean houses and only comes to Teheran as
contraband, and is therefore very dear.
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The dog life in Teheran is the same as it was
in Turkey up to a few years ago ; the pariah dog
is the town scavenger, and the only means by
which the streets are cleared of part of their
rubbish : they live on the rubbish heaps and rear
their puppies in deserted doorways. Near the
slaughter-houses, where they are given the refuse,
they become very fierce, and attack the horses in
an alarming manner, sometimes following one in
packs ; one always has to ride with a long-lash
whip to beat them off. They are in far better
condition than those in Turkey, and are sometimes
very fine animals. When they die, if they do not
eat each other, their carcases lie rotting in the
streets. They are a pest in one's garden, where
they will lie hidden by day so as to thieve by night,
and make life so hideous by their howling that
I have often heard them being shot by those whom
they have exasperated.
The horse has always been the favourite animal
of the Persian, and as far back as the sixteenth
century the accounts of the stables of Shah Abbas
read like a tale from the " Arabian Nights." Shah
Abbas's horses wore gold harness studded with
precious stones ; they had velvet cloths embroidered
in pearls, and each horse had at least two attend-
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ANIMAL LIFE AND SPORT
ants. Now, of course, such luxury would cost
too much, and things are different, but the great
personages here have many horses, and when Nasr-
ed-Din moved up to his summer quarters twenty
years ago he took with him ten thousand horses.
In the present day every Persian has a stable ;
they like very young horses, and begin to use
them directly they are over a year old. A Persian
of any importance always has out-riders to his
carriage, and if he be a Prince he has led horses
as well. The horses that come from the Shah's
stables usually have their mane and tail dyed
violet. Horses have now become much more
expensive than formerly ; six years ago, when
I first arrived in Teheran, I bought a little five-
year-old bay pony to ride and drive for twenty-
five tomans (about five pounds in English money) ;
now no horse is obtainable under a hundred
or a hundred and twenty tomans, and then only
an old one for that price. I remember in 1906
some one gave one hundred and fifty tomans
for a Turcoman and we were all very much
surprised at anyone paying such a price. But
only the other day a European gave five hundred
tomans for a small Arab. Horses in Teheran are
not fed on oats, there are none grown in the
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country round ; they are all fed on barley, which
is extremely dear. In Enzeli and Resht the horses
are fed on rice, barley being too heating and
unsuited to the climate.
Persian men have few sports, except coursing,
shooting and hawking ; one constantly meets
parties going on hawking expeditions, or finds
them in some distant garden, which they have
chosen as their head-quarters, whence they stalk
the gazelle and mouflon which abound in the
mountains around Teheran.
My first experience of mouflon shooting was on
the far side of the Talhous Pass, one of the many
in the Elburz range of mountains ; the pass itself
is a narrow gorge through which all the game
near Teheran must go in spring to reach their
haunts behind the snows of Tochal.
I made my head-quarters about three hours
from Teheran in a peasant's funny little rough
hut, on the steep mountain-side ; we slept on the
floor in the only place which could be called a
room, and at night, through the chinks of the
ill-fitting door, we could see the peasants live
amidst the squalor of Persian poverty. We forgot
the discomfort of our own quarters, in the glorious
sense of freedom which the view of the mountains
140
ANIMAL LIFE AND SPORT
gave us, and the peasants amongst whom we lived
were quite worth knowing. Their childlike
acceptance of the life they live as the only possible
in this world, their unfailing good-nature and their
ever-ready proffers to help, made up for many
deficiencies, and in the evening twilight we used
to sit with them on the mountain-side, watching
their few thin goats being milked and tended,
and discussing the relative merits of their out-
of-date old guns and matchlocks. Teheran, lying
in the plain below, was to them but a name ; and
even if you called it Teheran they looked at you
uncomprehendingly ; to them it was the " Shahr "
— the city — the only city, from which came
riches and rumours. Of politics they knew little
and cared less ; all was in the hands of God, and
Mohammed was his Prophet. When they died
they would be buried behind the rocks, among
which they had passed their days, and their flocks
would still be brought home by their sons and
grandsons in the sunset.
Game is so plentiful about Teheran, that it is
indeed a blank day when one goes out at dawn
and comes home at sunset without seeing one
herd ; but for success in sport one relies entirely
on one's shikarhee, or native hunter. These
141
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men are trained from boyhood to utilize their
already marvellous power of sight ; soft-footed as
cats, and agile and untiring as the game they seek,
they are, to my mind, among the few people one
can really admire in Persia. They dress entirely
in comfortable warm clothes of black and red-
brown, and are indistinguishable from their sur-
roundings ; they crouch motionless for a few
minutes at a time against the rock, searching the
country for miles around with their wonderful
beady eyes, moving quickly from one spot to
another, till they see the game, when they stiffen
all over with excitement. Although they them-
selves never shoot, they are as keen as the sports-
man who follows them. Once game has been
sighted, the shikarhee becomes the master of the
situation, and, if his employer be wise, he leaves
all to him, and occupies himself as far as he can
with copying the shikarhee's proceedings — usually
with indifferent success ! I will not further
describe the stalk, which is much the same in all
countries.
Hawking is very expensive here, and it is only
the very rich Persians who are able to indulge in
it ; every bird has to have its own keeper, and
horses and pointers are needed in great numbers.
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ANIMAL LIFE AND SPORT
All small game is pursued by the yellow-eyed
hawk, while the hawks with black eyes always
attack the larger birds, and have even been known
to pit themselves against a gazelle. My first
hawking expedition was undertaken in the company
of Persian friends. We started off towards the
mountains in the early morning of a glorious
day, and I felt as if I had been dropped into the
Middle Ages : each man, in Persian dress, held
his hooded hawk on his wrist, while the hounds,
trained to flush the birds, gambolled with excite-
ment round our horses' feet. The chase is over
broken country and at breakneck speed, as the
partridge has to be rescued from the hawks, who
only get the brains.
Leopards and panthers are still found, though
panthers are getting very scarce now. They
have always been reserved for the Shah, but this
does not prevent Europeans from having a shot at
them whenever they get the chance.
The present Shah went out last winter to shoot
his first panther. His Majesty is not a very keen
sportsman, but all the Kadjars have shot panthers
and the tradition must be kept up. I am afraid
Sultan Ahmed will never be the first-class shot his
grandfather Mouzaffer-ed-Din was, so arrange-
143
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
ments have to be made in order to encourage him.
The Shah was taken to the spot where the panther
had been seen, and the trackers began to separate
in order to beat the animal up towards His
Majesty. Presently one of the suite placed a
rifle in the Shah's hand, and pointing to a place
where the brambles and undergrowth were very
thick, bade him shoot. The rifle went off ; loud
applause burst from the onlookers, and they rushed
off to the place at which the Shah had aimed.
The shot seemed indeed a good one, for there
lay the panther stone dead. Everyone was very
pleased ; His Majesty promised to become as
good a shot as his grandfather. But some inquisi-
tive European touched the animal and found him
quite cold. Turning to some of the trackers he
asked how long it took an animal to get stone
cold in Persia. By dint of many questions he
finally gathered that the panther had been dead two
days and put there to prove to his suite he could
shoot, and also to encourage His Majesty to continue.
I once, and only once, went for a porcupine
hunt ; I had been told the animal was quite good
to eat, so we arranged a day's sport, meaning to
bring back a porcupine for dinner.
We started off very early in the morning with
144
ANIMAL LIFE AND SPORT
several dachshunds, and went to the sandhills
where the porcupine holes had been found. We
erected a tent to protect ourselves from the sun,
and sat and waited while the dogs drew the holes.
The whole day long those dogs went in and out
of the holes trying to dislodge the occupants,
and getting very badly wounded for their pains.
We were kept quite busy taking the quills out of
the poor little dogs, and bathing their wounds ;
we ran out of water, and had to use the mineral
water we had brought for our lunch. Finally,
we set our Cossacks to work to demolish the hole,
and at last the porcupine decided to leave. He
made a rush for the open plains with the dogs at
his heels, but he was a great fat beast and could
only go slowly. I was given a gun and told to
shoot ; I fired and missed, and the animal ran
back to his hole, the dogs barking at his heels.
One of our party seized his hind legs as they were
vanishing into the hole, and held on until we got
ropes and pulled him back to daylight. Someone
then gave him the coup-de- grace with a knife,
and then I was told that it was not possible to eat a
porcupine. Had I known I should never have gone
to the hunt. What is the good of killing an animal
which is not dangerous if one cannot eat it ?
145 10
CHAPTER X
THE CIVIL SERVICE AND THE ARMY
I WONDER how we should have managed
to live in Teheran forty years ago, when
there was no post. We get a mail twice a week
now, and what a calamity it seems when, owing
to a storm on the Caspian, we get our post a few
hours, or even a whole day, late !
People used to confide their letters to the con-
ductors of caravans or to travellers, or to pilgrims
who were going to visit the Holy tombs at Kebela
or Meshed, or even to merchants going to the
great fair at Nijni-Novgorod. The important
merchants of Teheran and Tabriz who were in
correspondence with Europe, and the few foreigners
living in Persia, confided their letters to the
couriers of the French, Russian and English
Legations.
But there were special couriers, whose work
was to carry dispatches from the Persian Govern-
146
THE CIVIL SERVICE AND THE ARMY
raent to the provincial authorities, and urgent pri-
vate letters were sent by them. These couriers left
Teheran twice a month and went in every direc-
tion all over the country. Directly a courier
received the bag containing the official letters
for the governors and the civil and military
authorities at the place which he had to visit,
he took up his abode at the Caravanserai and
announced to the merchants there that he was
leaving the next day. These merchants were
only too glad to be able thus to correspond with
their families and clients in the provinces ; and
they also informed the other merchants around
who came in large crowds to the courier, and gave
him their letters and small parcels. These he
undertook to take to their destination in return for
a payment which he himself fixed. He allowed no
bargaining ; " Take it or leave it," he said. Of
course, the heavier the letter the more he charged ;
sometimes he asked two shillings for an ordinary
letter. No one murmured ; they were only too
happy to be able to send a letter at all, never
mind what the cost. When the courier was
ready to leave he came out of his room, booted
and spurred ; the guide who was to accompany
him was waiting at the door with two horses.
147 10*
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
The bags were then strapped on the guide's horse,
and off they went amid shouts of " Farewell,"
" Speedy return," and " Good luck " from the
bystanders. On arriving at each town he distri-
buted its letters, taking care to make the recipient
pay as much, if not more, than the sender. If you
sent a letter you had to pay the transport, and if
you received one you had to pay too, a double
profit for the courier. I was told of a courier who
received eighteenpence for a letter from the
sender, and charged two shillings to the person to
whom it was addressed. Sometimes people sent
money to their relations or friends, but it very
seldom reached them intact. In fact, the chief
of the post-houses got very rich by lending money
at thirty per cent., and his capital was derived
from the money confided to him to be sent to
the provinces.
But in addition to these Government couriers
there were the foreign legation couriers, who also
left once a month — the French by Tabriz and
Trebizond, the Russian by Tiflis, and the English
by Bushire. But as commercial relations with
Europe developed, the want of better postal
arrangements made itself felt, and at first a trial
was made to establish a postal exchange between
148
THE CIVIL SERVICE AND THE ARMY
certain of the principal towns of the country.
About the year 1873 the Government obtained
the service of an Austrian to put the post into
working order. He arrived with two colleagues
and set to work without loss of time. Of course,
he met with tremendous difficulties, for the post
was by then an institution, the management of
which the Shah conceded to any of his favourites
or nobles who would pay him for it. Naturally
the purchaser was entitled to make as much as
he could out of it. Perhaps the greatest difficulty
the Austrian Director met with was the reluctance
of the Persians to trust him with money ; they
preferred giving the money to his Persian inter-
preter, who put most of it into his own pocket.
Notwithstanding all this, the Austrian worked
wonders in a short time, and the first postal service
was inaugurated between Teheran and the Shivran
in 1875. Everyone was very pleased, and the
Director then sent his colleagues to Tabriz, and
looked after the departure and arrival of the mail
between Tabriz and Teheran himself. Little by
little other lines were created — first Kerman, then
Shiraz, Bushire, Khorassan and Kirmanshah. In
a short time Persia was traversed by postal couriers,
and regular weekly mails were instituted. This
149
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
was great progress ; Persia seemed no longer
isolated, and in 1877 she was admitted to the
Universal Postal Union ; stamps were ordered
in Europe, and in spite of many difficulties caused
by Russia, the country obtained a proper postal
service. In 1884 Persia signed a postal conven-
tion with France and Algeria, which shortly after
was extended to Tunis, and in 1890 a convention
was signed between Turkey and Persia.
The Austrian Director having retired, the
Persian Government engaged other Europeans,
who all introduced innovations. By the year
1900, however, things were getting slack, and
the Persian Government asked Belgium to help
reorganize the Post. A director was sent out,
but after having worked wonders in a short time,
he unfortunately met with an accident when out
riding, and was obliged to retire.
The Customs were then in the hands of the
Belgians, so it was decided to put the Post under
the same administrator. But in 1907 the Shah,
owing to intrigues among the Persians, decided to
separate the Post from the Customs. This separa-
tion had as its immediate effect to deprive the
Post of^twenty officials in the provinces, and
therefore several improvements projected could
150
THE CIVIL SERVICE AND THE ARMY
not be carried out. There is now only one Euro-
pean official in the Postal Service ; he is a Belgian,
and is under the orders of the Minister of Posts
and Telegraphs.
Since 1905 the Russians have allowed parcels
under eleven pounds in weight to pass through
their country and go to Enzeli ; so we all have our
things, when possible, sent by parcel post and
addressed " Poste Restante, Enzeli," and from
there they are forwarded to us in Teheran.
The latest innovation in Teheran is the putting
up of letter-boxes about the town. I am afraid,
however, they are not a great success, though I
believe them to be quite trustworthy, and there
are several collections a day. The first stamps
that appeared in Persia were made in Paris in the
reign of Shah Nasr-ed-Din ; but with the excep-
tion of two series, one made in Paris and the
other in Holland, all the stamps used here from
the year 1876 to 1896 were made in Vienna.
From 1897 till now they have always been printed
in Holland. A few stamps printed by means of
hand seals were struck in 1901 at Meshed, and
there were some stamps printed in Teheran a
few years ago, owing to the dearth in the supply
from Holland.
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
A great difficulty in Teheran is the distribution
of the letters. Persians have no family name, so
that if the address on the envelope does not
include the profession, origin, parentage and all
sorts of details concerning the person for whom
the letter is destined, the probability is that the
postman will never find the owner. Then again,
if the letter is addressed to a woman, how can the
postman reach her ? She lives in a part of the
house where he is not allowed to penetrate, and
the houses have no letter-boxes. As there is so
much difficulty about the distribution of letters,
the Post Office has about fifty letter-boxes which
can be hired by the public ; strangely enough, how-
ever, only two are let. Persians usually register
their letters, and in addition pay an extra tax to
receive a notice that the letter has been delivered.
In olden days there were no postmen in Persia.
When the courier reached his destination the
post office was immediately closed and every one
set to work to sort the letters. When all were
sorted, the post office was opened, the public
rushed in, and a clerk read out the names on the
envelopes in a loud voice, and as the owner claimed
his letter, it was thrown to him over the heads of
the crowd.
152
The Post arriving at Teheran.
Cossack Barracks.
[To face p.
THE CIVIL SERVICE AND THE ARMY
Travelling by post is a cheap way of travelling in
Persia, but, oh, how uncomfortable it must be !
It is bad enough to be shaken to pieces in a carriage
where you can arrange everything as you like,
but when you travel by post you are obliged to
settle yourself so as not to disarrange or damage
the mail- bags ; you are dependent on the good
will of the courier for the shortness of the time
you stop at the relays. One advantage, however,
is that you travel quickly, as the post goes before
everything.
Of course, in some parts of Persia the roads
are quite impracticable for carriages, so that
one can only travel on horseback or on
mules.
The post is carried on the backs of camels
between Kirman and Bender Abbas, and in 1904
all the horses belonging to the post on the road
between Shiraz and Abadeh died, owing to an
epidemic, and the post was carried by cows and
oxen for more than six months ! Between Teheran
and the Demavend mountains the post is carried
by people on foot, as the road is too steep for
any four-footed animal. These Casseds, as they
are called, are intrepid walkers ; they know the
mountains thoroughly, they are familiar with every
153
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
short cut, and can do from thirty to forty miles
a day, carrying a load of at least fifty pounds.
Some of the roads are very unsafe, owing to
the unruly state of the country ; on these roads
the couriers are usually given an escort. Though
decidedly necessary, this guard is unfortunately
not always very efficient. It is usually composed
of a couple of men only, whose method is to try
and recognize the brigands who attack the mail,
and then gallop off as fast as possible to the nearest
village or post-house, and there collect enough
courageous people to pursue the brigands. These
latter, however, usually force the courier in charge
of the mail to give up his road ticket at once.
This enables them to discover without loss of
time the bags containing the valuables. Having
securely tied up the coachman and courier, and
blindfolded them, the brigands take possession of
the valuables, and escape to the mountains, where
they hide in caves known only to themselves.
As a rule the guard recognizes them, and if the
individuals themselves are not captured, the whole
village or tribe to which they belong is made
responsible and punished for their theft.
The post-houses between Resht and Teheran,
which I described in my first chapters, are palaces
154
THE CIVIL SERVICE AND THE ARMY
compared to those on other roads. These post-
houses, or chapar kbaneb, as they are called,
are in the hands of a contractor, who places a
Naib, or deputy, in each house. They have houses
for the transport of travellers and the post ; there
is usually a distance of fourteen to twenty-four
miles between each cbapar kbaneh. Luckily the
coachmen generally carry a good supply of string
in their pockets so that if anything happens to the
harness or carriage between the relays they can
repair it.
These chapar kbaneh are all made on the same
plan. The entrance is a large gate and leads
by a wide corridor to the principal court-yard
in the middle of which is a tank. The stables are
built round the court-yard. A carpet is laid down
near the tank, and here in summer the traveller
crouches while waiting for his water pipe and a
steaming samovar to be brought to him ; a cup of
tea with many lumps of sugar, and a few whirls
of good Shiraz tobacco suffice to make any Persian
forget his fatigues.
During the bad weather, however, the travellers
are obliged to take refuge in the rooms that are
built all along the corridor. The Persians have
a peculiar and economical way of keeping warm.
155
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
In a hole in the floor in the middle of the room,
they pile up dried manure and coal dust ; this
they set light to and cover with cinders, over
the hole they place a wooden frame about eighteen
inches high and twenty-eight wide, and cover
it with a very large cotton or woollen rug, which
is spread all over the floor. This koursi, as it is
called, becomes the shelter of the owners of the
post-houses ; here they sleep, eat, smoke and
live ; here they receive travellers who are very
grateful for the comforting warmth after twenty
miles in the snow or rain.
There is, of course, a room reserved for the
traveller of note or the foreigner. This room
is usually built over the entrance, and it is the
most awful place imaginable. In the summer it
is a little better than in the winter, for the windows
can be opened and a little fresh air let in at
nights ; but in the cold weather the doors do not
shut, there are no panes in the windows, and the
fireplace is filled with damp wood which, when
lighted, gives out nothing but suffocating smoke.
Very few people use this room, every one prefers
the open air. One must always bear in mind
when travelling in Persia that the more one opens
one's purse the quicker one will travel. Only a
156
THE CIVIL SERVICE AND THE ARMY
good tip to the Naib will ensure you a good
horse.
The Belgian officials lent by their Govern-
ment to Persia during the last fourteen years
have done a great deal for the country. The
earliest arrived in 1898 to reorganize the Customs.
Mouzaffer-ed-Din, short of money as usual, wished
to borrow large sums from Europe, and having
naturally been asked for a security, had offered
his Customs ; but, as the system of farming them
out still prevailed in Persia, they were not much
of a guarantee. The Shah was advised to get
Europeans to help put his Customs in order, and
Belgians were chosen because they belong to
a neutral country. They completely reorganized
the system, revised the tariff, suppressed the
octroi, and I believe I am right in saying that
the revenues have increased seven hundred per
cent, since their arrival !
To enter into details about their work would
entail too much politics, the Customs having
been used as a security for the loans from England
and Russia, so I will only say that the Belgians
have now the entire management of the Customs,
Post, Treasury, Taxes, and Mint, which* will suffice
to show that the Persians have full confidence in
157
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
them. The Americans who held the Treasury
and the Mint last year have all left Persia and
have been replaced by Belgians. As far as the
Mint is concerned the Belgians were the first
Europeans to have anything to do with it ; they
built it, and from 1901 to 1907 it was always
managed by them.
In 1907, however, the Persians took it over,
and this state of affairs lasted till last year, when
for eight months an American was at its head.
Since then it has returned to the care of the
Belgians, and it is now managed by M. Peerts,
who was in charge of it from 1904 to 1907, and
helped to build it. It forms part of the Treasury,
and, like the Customs, is under the control of
M. Mornard.
There is no gold money current in Teheran
now, though there are a few gold coins obtainable
still ; these are usually coins that have been struck
specially by order of the Shah. In olden times
the toman was made in pure gold, though after-
wards it was mixed with copper, and very often the
coin was chipped round the edges, thus taking away
some of its value. In those days the merchants
before accepting a coin insisted on weighing it.
The gold itself came, I believe, from Russia.
158
THE CIVIL SERVICE AND THE ARMY
The coin most in use now is the silver two-kran
piece ; it is a little smaller than a florin, and its
worth, roughly, eightpence. There is also the
one kran, but it is less used, and the five-cran is
even rarer.
It was the custom for each city to make its
own money, which was struck by hand ; but about
the year 1872 a spinning factory near the Shimran
was transformed into a Mint, and the money
for the whole country was coined there. This
building was soon declared unsafe, the chimneys
threatening to fall, so it was decided to build a new
Mint on the latest European model. The old
one has been used this year during summer for
the Treasury and Customs.
The New Mint, as it is still called, was begun
in 1900 and finished in 1903. It was designed
by a Belgian architect, and the work was carried
out under his orders and under the supervision
of M. Peerts. The machinery was difficult to
obtain ; it had to come out from Europe in small
pieces and be put together at the Mint. This
was done by a Belgian mechanic, M. Petrez.
Finally it was finished and ready for work, and
during the summer of 1905 Mahomet AH, then
heir-apparent, inaugurated it.
159
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
During the first year it only worked for four
months, but during the last three years it has
been working without stopping.
It is managed on exactly the same system as
in Europe. The silver comes chiefly from
England by parcel post, a block in each parcel.
In its first year about twenty thousand tomans
(four thousand pounds) were coined per day ;
now, however, the daily sum is about thirty-four
thousand tomans (six thousand eight hundred
pounds). The workmen are at work ten hours a
day, and it must be pretty trying during the
summer to work at stoking the furnaces for the
small sum of one or two shillings a day ; the
minimum wage paid to any workman at the Mint
is one shilling, and the most they can get is four
shillings. They are not allowed to carry money
on them during working hours, and they are very
carefully searched when they leave. This does
not always prevent thefts being committed, and
during last summer seven were arrested because
money was found on them.
The money most current in Teheran is paper,
the smallest note being a toman. This paper
money is issued by the Imperial Bank of Persia,
which has the monopoly, and the notes are all
160
THE CIVIL SERVICE AND THE ARMY
printed in England. It is to this bank that the
Customs remit their takings in the Southern
provinces to be sent to Teheran, and it has branches
all over Persia.
There is another important bank in Teheran,
and that is the Russian Bank. It is under the
orders of the Finance Minister of Russia and has
a political raison (T2tre. Its chief business is to
collect the payment of the interests and sinking
funds of the two Russian loans which are
guaranteed by the Customs in the North of
Persia. The Customs remit their takings to a
branch of this bank in the Northern Province.
ARMY
The Constitution has altered many things ; the
most striking is the army. I am afraid, however,
that it is only an outward change ; recent events
show that Persians, as soldiers, leave much to be
desired. Certainly, enough different systems have
been tried, and all without success. Instructors
from various countries have been appointed, and
have worked hard towards the necessary improve-
ments, but Persians do not seem fond of fighting,
so it is very difficult to help them. There are
some warlike tribes who would make fine soldiers
161 ii
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
if properly trained, but intrigues are too numerous
to allow anything serious to be done. One man
in every ten of the population is taken for military
service, and the private soldier gets about eight
shillings and eightpence a month and his meals,
bath and barber free. One thing that prevents
the Persian going willingly to his military service,
is the irregularity with which he gets his pay.
He is obliged, therefore, to make his living some
other way while doing his service, and usually
he sells poultry, vegetables and eggs. Officers
are paid from twenty-five to one hundred tomans
a month (a toman is about four shillings in English
money, but the rate of exchange varies). The
rank of officers is hereditary, they have no military
training, and, as a rule, are very ignorant.
Owing to the different nationalities of the in-
structors, the drill of various countries is employed.
The artillery and infantry are drilled according
to the Austrian system, and the cavalry use
Russian tactics. There is a brigade of Persian
Cossacks who have Russian officers, and these
constitute the Shah's guard.
Since last year there has been a new gendarmerie,
organized by several Swedish and two American
officers. There are eleven hundred men at present
162
THE CIVIL SERVICE AND THE ARMY
dispersed over Persia — two hundred and sixty
at Kasvin, one hundred and thirty at Shiraz,
fifty at Ispahan, forty-one at Zendjan, and the
rest in and around Teheran. The drill regula-
tions are a combination of American, Austrian,
French and German tactics, the idea being to
adopt the best from each country and to avoid
all unnecessary movements. The gendarmes are
better paid than the soldiers in the regular army,
they get four tomans a month and their food,
or, if no food, an extra three tomans in money,
and the pay is regular.
There is an arsenal in Teheran, but no rifles
are made there ; the Persians generally use Lebel
carbines, and the artillery are Schneider, Maxim
and Hotchkiss. Some black powder is manu-
factured, and a little ammunition is loaded at the
arsenal.
163 n*
CHAPTER XI
EDUCATION AND MEDICINE
IT is very difficult, even for those who have
the entree into some of the Persian house-
holds and can see the family at home, to under-
stand them. In those homes where I have been
received, the parents seem to educate their children
themselves. Some few have foreign governesses of
mediocre capacity, who teach a smattering of
things European ; their unlucky charges learn
just enough liberty of action and thought to be
rendered thoroughly dissatisfied with their lives
as they grow older. A few boys and girls up to
the age of eight or ten are allowed to go to Euro-
pean children's parties and have a really good
romp, or to come and play with a little contem-
porary in the Legation garden ; but the small boy
at home is doomed to spend most of his life with
the women servants in the Anderoun, listening
164
EDUCATION AND MEDICINE
with his sisters to conversations which are quite
unfit for children's ears.
I have been told by an American missionary that
in many cases parents have seen the harm which
comes of this undermining influence at home,
which they are unable to combat, and have begged
that their small sons might be taken as boarders
in the Mission, and thus bodily removed from the
contaminating atmosphere of the Anderoun.
The American Mission has a boarding school
for boys, which is self-supporting and self-
governing. The upper boys themselves keep the
accounts — of course, under the supervision of the
superintendent. The food is also ordered by
the boys. If the profit on the management
permits of it, free pupils are taken, and one free
pupil was admitted this year on this system.
There are forty boarders, and over three hundred
day boys. The education which the boys receive
qualifies them for the University, being a public
school system ; they are forced, however, on
account of their nationality, to learn Persian and
Arabic, and this of necessity excludes Greek and
Latin, which would be excessive. A great effort
is being made by Mr. Jordan, head of the Mission
school, to found a University in Teheran through
165 '
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
which the boys may pass after leaving the school.
A donation has been received from America,
and it is hoped it will be sufficient to purchase
the land necessary for this college. The boys,
of course, study English and French in addition
to the usual subjects. The Mission takes all classes
and all nationalities, as well as boys of different
religions ; and one of its rules is, that no religion
shall be criticized within the Mission walls.
Apropos of this, a story is told of a boy who asked
one of the teachers if she would give him her
opinion of Mohammed. She replied : " We are
not allowed to speak against each other's religion,
so I cannot answer you." The boy, evidently no
fool, smiled broadly at her answer. The mission-
aries teaching in the school are of both sexes.
Attached to the Mission there is a girls' school
on the same lines as the boys', and giving the
American High School education. There are
over three hundred girls in the school, of which
one hundred and fifty are Moslems ; fifteen years
ago there was only one Moslem girl, and it is
only since the Constitution that others have
joined.
There are at present sixty girls' schools in
Teheran, under the direction of the Persian
166
The American High School, Teheran.
V
The American Mission Church.
[to face p. 166
EDUCATION AND MEDICINE
Government ; two years ago there were, I believe,
one hundred.
The study of the Mohammedan religion is
compulsory in these Persian schools. Religion is
not compulsory in the Mission schools, and
Christian teachers, who have graduated from the
Mission school, teach the Mohammedan religion in
those of the Persian Government. A graduate from
the boys' Mission school wrote to a lady teacher
at the girls' school, to ask her to recommend him
a suitable wife. She was to be chosen from the
school ; he preferred her religion to be Christian,
but he would accept anything except a Jewess.
In 1906 the Germans, in conjunction with the
Persian Government, founded a German school
for boys only. This school is composed almost
entirely of Persian boys. There are six German
and six Persian professors, who follow the gymnase
system of Germany ; but, like the American
Mission, teach Arabic and Persian instead of
Latin and Greek. It will generally be found that
the Persian young man educated in Europe loses
his Persian cultivation and style ; he has not
received the grounding necessary, through the
omission of Arabic, which is to Persians what
Latin is to the English.
167
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
It will be seen, therefore, that these European
schools play a very important part, giving Persian
boys the education necessary to fit them for
European universities, while keeping them in
Persia until they are old enough to be sent to
Europe.
There is only one private school for girls in
Teheran, which was founded in 1906 by Richard
Khan, a French Mohammedan. There are fifty
or sixty girls of the upper classes, whose ages are
from six to twenty-seven. The usual course of
study is pursued under a French lady, Mile.
Secousse. When the school was first opened,
the girls, through shyness, all wore their veils
over their faces ; but they soon became emanci-
pated, and now very few wear veils during school
hours. It is a great pity that there should not
be more such schools in Teheran, as the girls
in many cases are very intelligent, and one cannot
help wishing that they should benefit by a develop-
ment which should lead to the quicker eman-
cipation of the Persian woman ; this would also
be the means of bettering the Persian man, and
might even mean salvation to Persia.
There is also a Technical School in Teheran,
whose object is to educate doctors and engineers ;
168
EDUCATION AND MEDICINE
but it is so elementary in the branches of science,
chemistry and mathematics, that the only side
which has given good results is the medical, which
has developed considerably during the last six
years. The school was founded about fifty years
ago, during the reign of Nasr-ed-Din Shah, but
failed in 1905. Since then, though the medical
side has been carried on, the engineering course
has been entirely abandoned. The pupils study
for two years physics, chemistry, natural history
and elementary anatomy, after which they have
a three years' course on the theory of medicine.
The professors in the polytechnic are Dr. Gachet,
Dr. Galley, Dr. Emir Khan, Dr. All Khan, M.
Lattes and M. Leblanc.
The Persian medical students are increasing
yearly in numbers, although the very severe
examination which takes place twice a year dis-
courages all but the very keen. The doctors gradu-
ating from this school are not of a high standard ;
but that is not surprising, since in Teheran no
subjects for dissection are obtainable, and there
is no clinic for confinements or autopsy. Up
till now the pupils have been asked to visit
at their discretion the Persian and American
hospitals, where permission has been given them
169
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
to study cases. A military hospital is now to
be built, which will, it is hoped, supply these two
essentials and complete the medical instruction
of the polytechnic. In 1911 thirty pupils were
sent to France to complete their medical studies.
Although, in August 1911, the Medjliss proposed
to pass a law regulating the practice of medicine,
it was not passed, as it was too much against the
interests of the Persian doctors already in private
practice and the native chemists' shops. There-
fore, anyone having no knowledge of even the
rudimentary rules of medicine may become a
doctor or sell drugs. A Persian chemist's object
is to buy a powder cheap and sell it dear, and to
dilute it so that it does not immediately kill his
patient. Fortunately there are two or three
European chemists in Teheran.
A Persian proverb says, " The last doctor who
sees the patient before his death is responsible
for it " ; and though the Persian doctor who has
any pretence to pride in his reputation often calls
in the European doctors in consultation, he never
does so till the last moment, when it is usually
too late. The European doctors have, therefore,
earned with reason the title of being " the doctors
of the dead."
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EDUCATION AND MEDICINE
There are several European hospitals in Teheran,
all working regularly. The Persian Government
hospital has always been in the hands of the
Germans. It is now under the direction of a
German doctor who belongs to the Prussian
army, and he is aided by another German military
doctor, a Persian doctor, a chemist, and a band
of male nurses who are very well trained. The
hospital has two good operating rooms, and has
sufficient beds for from sixty to eighty patients.
It has also rooms arranged so as to be able to take
in Persians of a better class and Europeans. All
the poor are given consultations, medicine and
bandages free, and there is a free vaccination
surgery attached to the hospital.
The American hospital was built by the Evan-
gelical Mission of New York ; it has been prac-
tically closed for a year, as there is no doctor
just now. The women's ward, however, is open,
as there is an American lady doctor there, and
this year there is also an American trained nurse.
The Russian hospital is almost exclusively
reserved for Russians, and is under the super-
vision of the doctor attached to the Russian
Legation. There is an infirmary in the Russian
Cossack Brigade buildings, where the brigade
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and their families are attended. There are over
a thousand consultations monthly in this infir-
mary and the dispensary is free.
The English Legation has a dispensary, con-
sulting-rooms for men and women, and an
operating theatre attached to the English Lega-
tion doctor's house ; it is financed by the English
Government and the consultations are free.
A Persian sinner who had misdirected public
funds repented of his sins at the eleventh hour,
and just before his death gave a large sum of
money to build a hospital. He was told that by
doing so he would gain Paradise. A great building
was erected outside Teheran towards the moun-
tains, but, unluckily, the money was not only
insufficient to run the hospital, but also to complete
the building, and until now it has stood unfinished
and useless. It is to be turned into barracks for
the new Persian gendarmerie.
There is a Sanitary Council, which has its seat
in Teheran, which has done a great deal towards
making the country healthier, and in times of
epidemics does excellent work. It was established
more than twenty-five years ago by Dr. Tholozan,
Physician to H.I.M. Nasr-ed-Din, Shah of Persia ;
Dr. Tholozan was vice-president and the Minister
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EDUCATION AND MEDICINE
of Public Instruction was president. Apparently
the object was to obtain information concerning
the various epidemics of cholera which visited
Persia from time to time and to combat them.
The Council led rather a precarious existence, only
awaking from its lethargy when a cholera epidemic
threatened. On Dr. Tholozan's death, Dr. Basil
carried on the work for some two years, when it
came to an end. In 1904 Dr. Schneider, Physi-
cian to H.I.M. Mouzaffer-ed-Din, was granted
permission to re-establish and reorganize the
Council, which he did at very considerable
trouble ; all the European doctors then in Teheran
were made members, besides several well-known
Persian physicians, but the latter were not given
a vote. Ultimately they insisted on a vote and
better representation, which was granted them.
During Dr. Schneider's period of office he took
great trouble to put the Council on a sound basis.
During the plague epidemic in Seistan, and also
during the cholera epidemic in 1904, much good
work was done. Several Commissions sat and
drew up pamphlets for the guidance of the people
during the cholera epidemic, and for the pre-
vention of tuberculosis, etc. ; public washhouses
and other sanitary innovations were installed.
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Dr. Coppin succeeded Dr. Schneider and
carried on these duties till he retired, when he
was succeeded by Dr. Georges. Dr. Georges,
professor of medicine in the King's College,
threw himself with great energy into the work
of the Sanitary Council, drawing up regulations
for the conduct of business ; putting the archives
in order ; establishing a free vaccination service
and a quarantine station at Enzeli on somewhat
similar lines to that already established at Bushire
through the efforts of the Government of India.
The Sanitary Council possesses no executive
powers ; it only advises. It is at present com-
posed of a doctor from the Persian hospital, twelve
Persian doctors resident in Teheran and chosen
by the Government, the delegates of foreign
Governments, the Legation doctors and the
veterinary surgeon of His Majesty. There is a
president appointed by the Shah, a vice-president
elected yearly by the members, a secretary and his
assistant, and a representative of the Administra-
tion of Customs. All members have votes, and
they are obliged to attend the meetings of
the Council, which take place every month. If
they cannot attend, they must send their vote
on the questions under discussion.
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EDUCATION AND MEDICINE
The vaccination institute and the bacterio-
logical laboratory is under the supervision of the
Sanitary Council. It also establishes the rules
concerning the transport of corpses to Kebela
and other holy places, and it looks after the health
of the pilgrims ; it gives notice to the Foreign
Office, to the Minister of the Interior, to the
Administration of Customs, and to the Legations
and foreign delegates of any epidemics that are
raging, and details the sanitary precautions that
should be taken against them. Local efforts at
sanitary reform are undertaken and looked after
by a committee of Persian doctors with Euro-
pean diplomas, who are under the Governor of
Teheran.
The president of the Sanitary Council receives
five hundred tomans (about one hundred pounds)
a year for current expenses ; the European
secretary receives three hundred and sixty
tomans, and the natives nine hundred and sixty
a year.
All corpses taken to holy places pay a tax, and
this goes entirely to the Council, except for the
deduction made for the keeping up of the hospital
at Kermanshah.
Although the vaccination service is free, the
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Council receives ten per cent, of the tax levied on
all carnage expenses connected with it.
When there is an epidemic, the Administration
of Customs pays the expenses of quarantine,
sanitary inspection, doctors' fees, etc., and it
superintends these services.
A sum of fifteen thousand tomans (three thousand
pounds) has lately been given to create sanitary
establishments in the ports of the Caspian Sea ;
the work has already been begun.
176
CHAPTER XII
THE ARTS IN PERSIA
Music
T^ERSIAN music is an evolution of the Arabian,
and a good many Turkish airs also are used
nowadays. These are played by ear on native
instruments, and both the music and words of
their songs are handed down orally from father
to son ; no Persian music was scored until about
forty years ago.
Persians simply love their music, and no feast,
holiday or entertainment is complete without it.
Important personages hire the regimental bands
when they give a garden-party or dinner, and very
rich Persians usually keep their own musicians,
who are classed among the servants ; but for
those unable to afford this luxury there are troupes
which can be hired for the evening. These
usually consist of musicians, dancers and a clown.
Sometimes the dancers are women, but more
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PEEPS INTO PERSIA
often they are boys ; the Persians prefer them,
and they are very graceful in their long tunics.
Their dancing consists of movements from the
hips and waving of the arms, keeping time to the
music, and sometimes the clashing of cymbals
over their heads while they dance. The Court
has a private band, which follows it everywhere,
and which salutes the sun at its rising and
setting with a terrible din of trumpets and
drums.
Native instruments are of both kinds, stringed
instruments called Zavatol-Ovtar, and mouth
instruments called Zavatol-Nafkh. These are said
to date from the time of David, and certainly
they are very primitive ; I was asked by a friend
last year to buy a collection of Persian musical
instruments, and I bought a few that are in use
now. Some resemble a guitar, some are like
drums ; some, again, are like pipes ; but how
anyone can say they give forth melodious sounds
I cannot understand. The same tune is heard
for hours together, and it reminds me more of
a small child crying than any music.
We were up country for the summer months
once, when Teheran was going through a troublous
time, and I forbade the servants to go to town
178
THE ARTS IN PERSIA
lest they should accidentally get shot. They,
therefore, got leave to amuse themselves in the
stables in the evenings. As soon as we had
finished dinner and were settled down for a game
of cards, weird sounds were heard ; the servants
had hired musicians for the night, and they played
the same air from nine till three, when I finally
sent and begged them to stop. I almost prefer
the gramophone.
Things were better before the reign of Shah
Ismail, who issued an edict causing the execution
of all musicians because one had proved himself
a traitor and tried to put a usurper on the throne.
For this crime, committed by a musician, a ban
was placed on music. The poets, Ferdousi and
Wizani, speak of the early Persian musicians,
among whom the best known was Barbod. He is
still famous in Persia for his work, " The Thirty
Airs of Barbod," which are sung of in all the early
Persian writings.
Farabi, also a great musician, came much later ;
in his time Persian music was at its best.
PAINTING
No art in Persia is what it used to be ; music
is not considered as it was ; the great poets have
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no successors, and painting also appears to be
dying out.
Formerly beautifully illustrated manuscripts
were to be found, and lovely miniatures on the
top of boxes, and mirrors with painted covers
could be picked up in the Bazaar for small sums.
Now the modern painting is taking the place of
the old, and the Persians have a school of art,
founded within the last two years. It is kept up
by the Government, and instruction is free. The
professor is a wonderful artist, and has painted a
picture of one of the rooms in the Palace which
is simply marvellous. It represents one of those
reception-rooms, whose walls and ceilings are
composed of little pieces of mirror. The carpets
and furniture are depicted as reflected in these
small mirrors, and I was not surprised when I
heard the artist had taken five years to paint it.
Every detail is exact, just like a miniature
painting.
The pupils of the school show decided taste
for painting, and can copy exactly anything set
before them. I visited the school this year, and
saw boys of ten and twelve years old, who had
been learning to paint and draw for three months,
copying exactly, line for line and shade for shade,
180
THE ARTS IN PERSIA
an oil painting of a nude female figure. I cannot
help wondering what they will produce when they
attempt to copy nature.
I have been trying to buy a few little old water-
colours lately, and the Jew pedlars bring me a
great many ; but most of them are modern,
badly done and crude in colour. The subjects
of the only old ones I have seen lately have been
too improper to buy. I have, however, succeeded
in getting one or two which are perfectly lovely,
and whose detail is simply surprising. I am sure
if some of those boys I saw copying nude life-size
figures in oils were to go in for painting Persian
figures in water-colour, with the same detail as
the older artists employed, they would be more
successful. Perhaps after trying European fashions
they will return to their own and do better.
POTTERY
The art of pottery has been known to the
Persians for about two thousand years, and the
specimens which have been unearthed during
the last three or four years bear a striking testi-
mony to the high standard of excellence they had
achieved. The chief centres of the earthenware
manufacturers seem to be traced to Nain and
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
Kashan, and possibly to Kerman. The number
of old Chinese porcelains and potteries found in
Persia, which were sometimes original and some-
times Persian copies of Chinese, are to be accounted
for by the fact that trade passed from India and
China to Europe through Central Asia and the
Persian Gulf. The Persian copies were identical
with the originals in design, form, colour and
varnish, even going so far as to imitate the marks
of the Indian and Chinese makers.
Earthenware found in Persia may be classed
under two heads, Chinese of China, and Kashee of
Kashan. It is doubtful if true porcelain of hard
paste was ever made in Persia. There is a con-
tinual discussion between dealers and connoisseurs
as to whether some particular pot is Persian or
Chinese, but, to my mind, the pottery and china
of Persia differs from the Chinese to such an
extent in colour, design and glaze, that a real
connoisseur may satisfy himself as to which is
which. The more closely Kashee resembles the
Chinese porcelain, the greater its value. The
legend runs that one hundred families of Chinese
artisans came to Persia with Hulaku Khan about
A.D. 1256, which would account for Chinese
porcelain having been made in Persia, and it is
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THE ARTS IN PERSIA
undoubtedly from them that the Persians learnt
the art.
Both in the past and the present, pottery was
made for practical household purposes in Persia.
Little has been found made purely for ornament,
though a few objects in the shapes of animals
and vases have come to light. This applies to
modern pottery as well as to the old. Since the
reign of Shah Abbas the art has degenerated, and
to-day only very inferior earthenware is produced.
During the last four years, digging at Rhaye has
been done more or less seriously, and specimens
of Kashee, which until then had been unknown,
were found. These specimens are very fine ;
the designs are well drawn and very like the
Chinese. They consist of human figures, horses,
birds, camels and other animals, some of which
have human faces. These designs are usually on a
background of smooth surface, turquoise blue or
cream colour, with occasional incrustations of gold.
So far, I do not know of any one single object
that has been found intact, but sufficient pieces
to complete an object have been found, and are
very valuable. One small vase, nearly complete,
was sold recently in Paris for thirty-five thousand
francs.
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Rhaye, or Rhages, lies about six miles south of
Teheran. The ancient tower was built partly
on a spur of the mountain running out into the
plain, and partly on the plain itself. The
Apocrypha tells us that Tobit, led by the Angel
Gabriel, journeyed to Rhaye and stood looking
down from its walls : also that Nebuchadnezzar
razed this city to the ground. It has since been
twice destroyed, and now, after centuries, it lies
under heaps of mud along the ridges of the
mountain ; its walls of later dates can still be
dimly traced, in mounds of mud round the base
of the jagged rocks and across the fields, where
they have been strong enough to withstand the
elements. It is here that excavators are at work.
Rhages was finally destroyed by the grandson of
Genghis Khan about A.D. 1250, and as the
first town existed two thousand years ago, objects
found in the ruins to-day may be anything from
seven hundred to two thousand years old. Each
time the town was rebuilt the new town was
smaller than the one previously existing, hence
it follows that the farther away from the centre
the pottery is found the older it is likely to be.
Unfortunately no system is followed to ascertain
the exact spot from which the object came ; so
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SOME OLD PERSIAN POTTERY
A cream-coloured bowl found near Rhaye and bought for 3,000 tomans.
A wall tile found at Rhaye. An ancient dish.
THE ARTS IN PERSIA
experts find it almost impossible to determine
its age.
There is a second kind of pottery found at
Rhaye, which is also Kashee, but has a metallic
reflet ; it is found in two colours, lapis lazuli and
white ; the blue is much the rarer of the two.
Tiles are also found in this pottery, with raised
figures ; very bad copies are made and sold as old
by the dealers.
A third sort of pottery has come to light which
closely resembles the Chinese, the paste being
very hard ; the designs are blue and white, and the
pottery thin ; the colour, not being blended with
the glaze, is very brilliant. It often bears marks
of Chinese makers. A less good pottery has also
been discovered of softer and more porous paste,
which is more Persian in design. It is very
beautiful, though clumsier of shape, the designs
less well drawn and the glaze not so good. Others
are found of hard paste, with designs of a brownish-
black colour on a white ground, and where the
human figure is drawn in these rougher potteries
the face is left a blank, showing that they were
made by good Mussulmans of the Sunni sect ;
the Prophet forbade the drawing of a human
face.
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Yet another pottery is found called Kashee
sefid, or white Kashee ; this is generally very thin
and sometimes ribbed. It bears no maker's marks,
and is very rare and costly ; it was usually made
in very small pieces. Besides these very fine
potteries a common kind is found, made of reddish
clay and varnished with a single colour ; the green
or bronze colour in this pottery is exceptionally
fine. It was often made also in imitation of the
Celadon porcelain and is said not to be very old ;
large unbroken dishes of this red pottery may
be bought for from one to three pounds.
As tiles have always been used in Persia from
the earliest date for the decoration of mosques
and tombs, there are very fine ones to be obtained.
Those most worthy of mention are like the best
pottery of Kashee Menie and Kashee reflet
metallique, the smoother the surface the finer
the tile, for those in relief are of a much later
date. The manufacture of tiles is said to date
from the time of the Mogul sovereigns down to
Shah Abbas, and it is from his reign that one may
date some of the finest specimens which have
been found.
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LITERATURE
The Persian language is extremely old, but the
language now used in Persia is not the same as
that spoken in the early ages. It has undergone
many changes and has suffered from the influence
of the Turks and the Mongols. In the seventeenth
century there were three languages used in Persia —
Arabic was used for science, religion and law ;
Persian for poetry and romance ; and Turkish as
the language of war. The Persians say that these
three languages were used ever since the world
began, and were even in use in the Garden of
Eden. The Serpent spoke Arabic, because it is
very persuasive ; Adam and Eve Persian, which
is soft and flattering, and therefore suited to
women ; while the Angel spoke Turkish, the
language of command, and thus terrified Adam
and Eve into obedience. The Persians say that
their language is a soft language, Arabic an
eloquent language, and Turkish a severe one.
The invasion of the Arabs considerably altered
the Persian language. The Arabic alphabet was
adopted and Arabic became the basis of Persian,
and in order to be able fully to understand the
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beauty of Persian poetry, young Persians are obliged
to study Arabic literature and grammar.
The Persian language is one of the richest in
the world, and to this admixture of Persian, Arabic
and Turkish have now been added French,
English and Russian expressions, owing to their
frequent intercourse with foreigners. The lan-
guage has always been the civilized tongue of
all the tribes, and even now the Afghanistan
and Belouchistan talk Persian, and Indian litera-
ture is largely composed of Persian words.
Up to the fifteenth century there were many
famous native poets, and the literature of the
country up to that time is well worth reading.
But during the last few centuries it has been
decaying, and I think I am right in saying that
modern Persian literature is in no way to be com-
pared with the ancient. Poets seem to have dis-
appeared from here lately — why, I cannot tell.
The wonderful atmosphere is as inspiring as ever,
the roses as lovely, the mountains and waterfalls
still exist, but where are Ferdousi, Saadi and those
great poets who charmed the Persians in early
days. The people seem as poetic as ever, and are
still great lovers of nature, but they are content
with learning the works of their great men and
188
THE ARTS IN PERSIA
do not now try to express their own thoughts
and feelings.
The first well-known Persian book is " Avesta,"
the holy book of the ancient Persians. It marks
the beginning of the religious era, the first in
Persian literature, and was written some time
during the fourth century ; it was the book of the
Zoroastrians, and it told of a good genius who
created all things that could do good in life, and
of an evil genius who tried to destroy all these
good works. The good genius was Ahura Mazda ;
he created the world from nothing, and the evil
genius, Angra-Manjus, created another world
which was full of lies and wickedness ; and to all
the marvels which Ahura Mazda gave to man-
kind for their happiness and prosperity, the evil
genius added a gift to counteract them. The
" Avesta " was in reality a book of prayers, with
invocations to God, a divine being, to the Sun,
the Moon, water and fire. " Let us adore the fire,
well-meaning warrior. He who brings dry wood
to the fire shall live in the joy of a quiet conscience,
he shall have many herds of cattle and beautiful
male children."
After the religious era came the day of the
epic poem ; this is the greatest epoch in Persian
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literature, and of all the poets of that time the
greatest is Ferdousi, " the Lion of poets," as he is
called. His great work is the " Shah-Nameh,"
or Book of Kings, and is really a collection of
Persian traditions of all times, edited by him
and made into a book ; he is supposed to have
declared that he only followed the traditions
and invented nothing.
He was not, however, the first Persian who
tried to collect the traditions and put them
together ; the first attempt was made by
Daneshver in the Pehlevian tongue during the
sixth century, and Ferdousi gives the following
account of it. " There was once a book of ancient
times in which were written many tales. All the
men, learned and wise, had a part of it, and every
intelligent man carried a fragment of it about with
him. There was a man named Daneshver, brave
and powerful, famous and full of intelligence,
who loved to collect tales of past times. He
searched through the provinces for any who had
stories of those times, and asked them to tell him
all they knew of the Kings and famous warriors,
and what they had done to leave the world in
such a miserable state."
The work of Daneshver was in the Pehlevian
190
THE ARTS IN PERSIA
tongue, and the founder of the Saffaride dynasty
caused it to be translated, with many additions,
into Persian during the tenth century.
Sultan Mahmoud, a Prince of the Ghaznevide
race, collected many tales about the ancient
Kings, and sought for a man who would suffi-
ciently respect the traditions to put them into
verse without altering or exaggerating the sense.
Ferdousi was the chosen man ; he was born in
the tenth century, and he had a good education
and was a good Arabic scholar ; he also knew
the Pehlevian language. He was thirty-six years
of age when he began his great work, and it took
him about twenty-two years to finish it. The
great attraction in his book is the wonderful
language in which it is written ; he is supposed to
have kept so closely to the text of the traditions,
and the book is supposed to be so true, that the
Persian historians take Ferdousi's work as a founda-
tion for their books on the history of their
country.
The poems always begin with an address to God ;
then the poet sings praises to intelligence. The
history of the creation of the world comes next,
and lastly the traditions are told.
After the era of Persian epics came the great
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lyric poets. Lyric poetry developed considerably
after the invasion of the Arabs, and the end of the
Saffaride dynasty marked a new era in Persian
poetry. At that time there were many poets
of great genius, but I will only mention those who
are the best known and most appreciated in their
own country.
One of the most famous is, of course, Omar ;
he was born in 1062, at Nishapore, and his pro-
fession was that of a maker of tents. He derived
his surname of Khayy&m from this, Khayyam
meaning " tent-maker." Owing to Edward
FitzGerald's masterly version, the best known of
Omar's works, and that for which he is famous in
Europe, is "The Rubaiyat," a series of quatrains
which are both sceptical and voluptuous.
Another great poet was Manoucher, who lived
in the twelfth century. At this time the
Mohammedan religion was beginning to establish
itself in Persia, and the Persian language, as it
is now used, began to develop. In the twelfth
century Persian literature made a fresh start.
Manoucher is the ideal poet for this country.
Oriental poets, and perhaps more especially
Persian ones, love life and to live luxuriously
in the midst of scented flower-beds, full of roses
192
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and jasmine. The poet greets the dawn with
joy — the dawn a generous fairy, who, with hand-
fuls of dew, creates golden lights and enchant-
ments. The birds, just awaking from their night's
rest, sing ; the women pass to and fro, graceful
and smiling, through the green woods. The
breast of the poet swells with joy, and in this feast
of nature his verses come readily to his lips. He
calls for his cup-bearer and quaffs the ruby wine,
drinking to the glory of love, of which he sings in
a naive and simple manner with youthful sincerity,
without stopping to give a thought to that day
which must surely come, when his beloved of the
heart of stone will leave him.
Manoucher sings chiefly of Nature in his poems,
and his verses to the seasons are quaint and simple.
" The mountains and plains are red and mauve
with tulips and violets. The violet holds up her
skirts, so that they shall not be soiled by the
earth, and she places a mauve veil upon her head.
" The narcissus flowers in a garden ; full of
love, he opens the silver petals that surround his
heart of gold. He wears a silken shirt lined with
ivory, and he sheds a delicious perfume ; he
resembles a lightly-wielded fan.
" How sweet it is, this fresh springtime ! It
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is sweet as the kiss of my beloved. Oh, friend
of my loving heart, bring wine and press me to
thy breast ! Let us live happily in this glorious
spring ; let us be merry amid the music and
flowers."
Manoucher wrote some allegories, which are
typical of his love of Nature, and perhaps the
prettiest is his allegory of Spring and Winter :
" The Spring resolved to attack the Winter
and to do battle against him. The hills and
plains are the domain of Spring, but he went on
a journey, and meanwhile Winter took possession
of all his property and damaged it. He robbed
the jasmines of their crowns, cut off the hands
of the trees, carried off the turbans of all the
shrubs and the golden boxes from the fruit trees.
In the gardens and on the hills he placed his
soldiers ; here warriors in white garments, there
others as black as negroes.
" The North wind on its course told of all
these doings to the Spring, and added : 4 Winter
has stolen everything in thy house — thy pearls
and all thy golden ornaments ; he has torn the
ear-rings and bracelets from the roses, thy beloved
ones ; he has broken the flutes of the nightin-
gales, thy musicians.' Then the Spring cried out !
194
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* I will be revenged on this impious Winter, i
will assemble my troops, dressed in green brocade,
my soldiers with curly hair, slight as cypress trees ;
the elms shall be my cavalry and the young elms
my infantry. The rainbow I shall use as my
bow and the willow branches as my arrows ; the
tulips shall give their petals to be my flag ; I will
take the clouds for battle elephants, and the
thunder shall pass them in review.'
" The Spring sent out his advance guard to the
Winter, and commanded him to light great fires,
splendid as the dawn, and to say : ' Great King,
in fifty days I shall have taken your place with
all my wealth and a hundred thousand cups of
ruby wine ; the little red-headed nightingales
will sing ; the jasmine with coral cheeks will weep
perfumed tears, and we will sit on the green
sward and listen to the musicians.' '
Perhaps the most popular poet in Persia, and
the one whose verses are the best known to all
classes, is Saadi ; he was born in the twelfth
century and he fought against the Crusaders.
His verses are so simple that even the small children
learn them, and one often hears them being
recited in the streets. His best-known work is
the " Gulistan," or Garden of Roses.
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The greatest mystic poet in all the Orient is
Jelal-ed-Din Roumi ; he lived in the thirteenth
century, and is famous for his allegory " El
Masnavi," which has forty thousand verses and
consists of the outpourings of a soul given up to
contemplation, and nearly every verse ends with
" O God, we have greatly sinned ! "
'After him came the great Hafiz ; he was born in
Shiraz, and was a baker's apprentice in his youth ;
he was a born poet and soon became very cele-
brated. He is a favourite with the Persians
because of his dreamy nature ; all true Persians
are dreamers. He writes very tersely, and seems
to have taken for his motto " Less words than
sense." And his works are, therefore, rather hard
to understand. He sings the praises of wine and
love ; in spite of the commands of the Prophet as
to abstinence from wine all Persian poets sing of it.
The humblest Persian knows Hafiz by heart,
and will sing his verses as he works ; and the
muleteers repeat his poetry as they lead their
mules across the mountains. His tomb in Shiraz
is always covered with roses ; he is not forgotten
and his songs will never die.
After Hafiz, the poet of whom we hear most
is Khodjindi, who lived in the fifteenth century.
THE ARTS IN PERSIA
His principal works are three volumes of short
poems and a book called the " Baharistan," a
sort of imitation of the " Gulistan " of Saadi ;
it is a description of springtime, but although
the style is good, these poems have not the charm
of the epic poems in the time of Sultan Mahmoud
Gagnevi, who did much to encourage the poets
to cultivate their art.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century
the country was upset by the conquest of the
Persian provinces by Genghis Khan. He ordered a
general massacre of the people, and spared neither
women, children, aged men, nor men of letters.
At the head of a large army he put Persia to the
sword, and his successors, Tamerlan and his sons,
had no liking for Persian poetry, which was neither
to their taste nor in their tongue. Thus many
centuries passed away without Persian literature
coming to the front again.
During the sixteenth century, in the reign of
the Sefevi Kings, no progress was made either ;
the Sefevis called themselves descendants of Ali,
and propagated the Shia doctrine definitely in
Persia, and the national spirit was submerged
by religious fanaticism. The Mongols disdained
Persian literature, and under their rule it took
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PEEPS INTO PERSIA
a new form ; the poets no longer sang of Nature
and the Spring, but the holy wars led by All's
son Hossein against the heretics were the sole
topics of their songs, and it is from this time that
the mystery plays date, which are still performed
during the first days of Moharrem. Persian
eloquence was used only for sermons preached by
the priests in the month of Ramazan.
The invasion of the Afghans (1688-1747) was
not more propitious to Persian literature, and it
was only under the Kadjars, towards the middle
of the eighteenth century, that literature made a
fresh start. Even the Princes wrote verses, and a
book by Reza Ghouli Khan called " Medj-ma-ol-
Fassaha " gives a general resume of the eighteenth
and nineteenth century poets. The best known
of that period is Quani, surnamed the Prince of
Poets, whose verses resemble those of Manoucher,
I think.
" Are those violets that are growing on the
edge of the stream, or is the grass strewn with the
hair of the houris ?
" The narcissus became old in his infancy,
and never having tasted blood, he is the colour
of milk. It appears he is like me, weighed down
with sorrow ; his beloved has forsaken him.
108
THE ARTS IN PERSIA
" Oh, my beloved, a truce to hostilities, and
let me kiss you as a sign of peace. If your feelings
will not allow you to do this, seek advice from
your friends and tie a hundred knots in your
hair and consult it as if it were the beads of a
rosary.
" Cup-bearer, fill my cup, there is not in all
Paradise a garden or river-bank like those of the
town where my beloved dwells."
At the present day poetry is encouraged in
Persia. Is it not curious how the Oriental spirit
of all time has a fancy for the ideal and the fanciful ?
It is not the supernatural that inspires these
poets ; it is their own imaginations, from which
their brains draw ideas both light and profound.
Voluptuousness, wine and flowers are the subjects
about which these delicious poets sing. They
await death smiling, for even death appears to
them but a new delight.
199
CHAPTER XIII
SUPERSTITIONS
IN spite of my long sojourn in Teheran I have
* never mastered the Persian language. I
know about twenty-five words, just about enough
to order something to eat and to say what time I
want the carriage and which way I want to go.
This ignorance of the tongue has naturally barred
me from intimate association with the Persian
ladies : the men I have met have all been high
officials, or people belonging to the Court, who
could speak French. Nevertheless, I have learnt
a little of the superstitions of the Persian people
and some of the ways of the lower classes.
Persians always have an answer ready ; they are
never taken unawares, and their inventive powers,
when needed to get them out of a difficulty, are
very great. A foreign Minister, travelling to
Teheran from Resht, stopped at one of the small
stations for some food. The head of the tea-
200
SUPERSTITIONS
house being asked by the dragoman what he
could give them to eat, replied he had very little,
only two eggs and a chicken. The Minister,
being informed of this, said they would eat any-
thing they could get there and have a better meal
at the next station. After a little while one
egg was brought in and set upon the table.
The dragoman asked where the rest of the meal
was, and was told that " The chicken shows every
sign of laying the second egg, and when she has
done so I will bring it to you, and then I will kill
her and cook her for you " — a neat way out of the
difficulty !
When one first comes to Teheran one sees
things done by the servants which make one
wonder what sort of hygiene the Persians have.
For instance, at a tea-party at a bachelor's house
we were given excellent ices, and afterwards tea
wras handed round, but there were no spoons.
Someone asked for a spoon. Our host, a new
arrival, explained by gestures to his servant what
was needed ; the servant took the spoons with
which we had eaten our ices and placed them in
the saucers ; our host tried then to explain, still
by signs, that he wanted the spoons washed before
being used for tea, whereupon the servant drew
201
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
out of his pocket a soiled handkerchief and pro-
ceeded to wipe the spoons on it ! No one asked
for anything else after that.
Persians have some superstitions which are the
same as those in our country. If a dog howls,
it is a sign of death ; two meeting on a staircase
must not pass each other — the one coming up
must go down and wait till the other is at the
bottom — and so on.
A strange thing is the Persian calendar. It is
brought out every twelve months with prophecies
of good and evil for the year. No Persian goes
on a journey or undertakes any enterprise without
first consulting the calendar. Sometimes it fore-
tells things that come true, as, for instance, in
the year 1909. At the end of 1908 Mohammed AH
was living at Bagh-i-Shah, a garden just outside
Teheran, in the midst of his troops and adherents ;
he had been having sore trouble to defend himself
against the Medjliss. The calendar for 1909
foretold evil things. The front pages, which are
usually devoted to wishes for the prosperous
reign of the sovereign and prophecies of his
successes, were silent, and the only allusion to
crowned heads at all was a prophecy that a mis-
fortune would overtake an Asiatic king. Mohammed
202
SUPERSTITIONS
Ali caused this calendar to be destroyed, so it
disappeared from the Bazaar, and by order of
the Shah a new calendar was prepared and put
into circulation. The chief astronomer, author
of the fatal calendar, was severely punished. All
these precautions, however, did not alter the fate
of the Shah, and the punishment of the astronomer
for seeing the future was rather unjust.
The calendar for 1911 foretold war in the East
and the taking of the town of Hamadan ; both
these events came true. When one out of
thousands of prognostications happens to come
true, the popular belief in the astronomers is
strengthened and the people talk of nothing
else for a long time.
The calendar for 1913 is already prepared ;
it consists of twenty-four pages, one page for each
fortnight, the Persian year being of forty-eight
weeks. At the top of the page one reads of the
events which are to take place during the month,
and opposite the date are the particular things
it is good or bad to undertake that day. The page
devoted to events to take place in the month of
February, 1913, begins : " God knows all. The
stars are propitious to kings ; the kings wish for
justice and their desire is towards benevolent
203
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
works. The priests and philosophers have a
leaning towards pleasure, costly garments and
much state and parade. A very great personage
will inspire much fear ; several military successes
will take place ; prosperity will reign in holy places
and merchants will thrive and grow rich. Many
ancient inscriptions will be discovered ; some
Government officials will act unjustly ; there will
be trouble in the Province of Fars. Children will
suffer from an epidemic ; terrible, cold and dan-
gerous winds will be experienced. There will be
probably an earthquake, followed by snow and
rain. Wonderful lights will appear in the sky."
Then comes that part of the calendar which
the Persians consult for each day. February 8th,
1913, is a good day to undertake something new,
to buy what is needed, and to wear new clothes.
February 9th is good for some things, to buy
land, pay visits to notables of the town, and to
shoot big game. February roth, three hours
after sunrise, is favourable to attend the Shah's
reception and to present petitions to him. To
enter a town, change houses, draw up a marriage
contract and plant trees, choose February nth,
four hours before sunset. Cut out new clothes,
go a journey, learn to write, arrange a marriage,
204
SUPERSTITIONS
on February 14-th, two hours before sunset.
February I2th and I3th are very unfavourable;
nothing should be done on those two days.
There are, of course, other things which deter-
mine the doings of the credulous Persian. I have
been told of a Persian going to consult a doctor,
and on entering the room, someone sneezed.
Sneezing once is very unfavourable, so the Persian
hastily turned to leave the room, when the person
sneezed again ; two sneezes are good ; the Persian
returned to his place. Once a Persian leaves his
house to go anywhere he must pause a moment
and see that the passer-by does not sneeze, as
that is a sign of danger, and he must not make
one step ahead until he has recited a verse of the
Koran to conjure away the evil ; but should the
passer-by sneeze twice he goes happily on his
way. Should a third sneeze be heard, alas ! that
is a sign of serious danger, and means that he
will not succeed in anything he undertakes, and
that he had better stay at home that day.
On leaving his house in the morning, the super-
stitious Persian will always recite a verse from the
Koran and blow it in the direction of the four
points of the compass, to chase away the devil.
Persians always take off their shoes when entering
205
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
a house and leave them outside the door. On
coming out, they look to see if their shoes have
fallen on top of each other. Should this happen,
it is the sign of a journey within the year. Should
the Persian to whom this happens be averse to
travelling, he is obliged to find a talisman to prevent
evil coming upon him. The best talisman is a
nail, which he must mark on the head with two
straight lines, recite a verse from the Koran, blow
on the nail, and, on the next Friday, knock the
nail into the corner of his room nearest his bed.
The Persians also push their religious venera-
tion rather far, and in some cases it becomes a
superstition. I am not going to speak of the
Persian religion ; it would take me too far and my
knowledge is too slight ; but there are certain
customs which are founded on Mohammed's
laws which are worth mentioning. There are
two sorts of ablutions which form a very important
part of the Persian's daily life. A pious Moham-
medan should wash himself four times a day —
morning, midday, afternoon and evening ; this
is the small ablution ; it consists of washing the
face, the hands and the arms up to the elbow,
passing the wet fingers over the toes, and from the
top of the head to the eyebrows. On Fridays
206
SUPERSTITIONS
and certain holidays the big ablutions take place,
and then the body must be washed entirely !
If any part of the body touches anything con-
sidered impure, that part must be plunged from
three to seven times in the water and must not be
dried ; the water must be allowed to drop off
drop by drop before each new plunge. Sometimes
in winter, when a Persian cannot obtain hot water,
he is obliged to break the ice on the basin in
front of his house before daybreak and plunge his
head into the icy water to perform his morning
ablutions.
Another quaint superstition, if I may call it
so, is what is known as the istekhara. This
custom consists in writing a question on a piece
of paper, sealing it up, and sending it to the
mollah to answer. The mollah slips the paper
into the Koran, says a verse over it, and opens
the Sacred Book at the place where the paper has
slipped in. What is written at the top of the left-
hand page is the answer to the question.
I remember when Mouzaffer-ed-Din was dying
the European doctors in the Shah's service were
anxious for another opinion, and suggested to the
Persians that a great professor should be sent
for. As the European doctors were French,
207
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
German and English, the question arose as to
the nation the great man should be chosen from.
The Persians decided on holding an istekhara ;
a mollah was called in, and he arrived with the
Koran and proceeded to recite verses from it.
Then the paper on which was written the solemn
question was placed between the leaves. The
first paper contained the question concerning a
French doctor ; the answer was : " Deliver him
not unto his enemies," whereupon the mollah
declared that the answer was unfavourable. Next
the English doctor was suggested, but the Koran
gave another decided negative, and the German
professor finally being approved of, he was sent
for. Unfortunately even the istekhara could not
save the Shah's life.
I have known cases where the istekhara decides
a dispute in a family. Only this summer my
head-man was very worried about his eldest
daughter ; she was just thirteen, the marriageable
age here, and her mother wanted her to marry a
man of forty. The father was very much against
the marriage, and the parents could not agree.
Finally they made up their minds to consult
the istekhara, who decided in favour of the father.
For once, anyhow, I think it was right.
208
Mollahs.
[tier nt yin.
A Severe Winter.
[To face p. 208
SUPERSTITIONS
I heard a story the other day about the origin
of the Koran, which I think worth relating to
show how cunning Mohammed was. The faithful
were hanging back and clamouring for a sign
from above, so Mohammed promised that if the
people would meet him at a certain spot near a
well he would cause a sign to be shown them. At
the time stated there was a great crowd round
the well. Mohammed then appeared and showed
a sheaf of blank parchment to the people. He
told them that he would cast it into the well,
and in return God would send out of the well
His wishes. The Prophet then let down the parch-
ment on a piece of string, and a few minutes after
he drew up another covered with writing. The
people cried out : " There is only one God, and
Mohammed is His Prophet ! " and were convinced
that a miracle had been performed !
Mohammed then suggested that they should all
walk past the well, and, in commemoration of
the miracle that had been performed there, they
should all throw a stone into the well. This they
did, stoning to death a Christian priest who,
having written the Koran at Mohammed's request,
was hidden in the well to help the Prophet to
perform his miracle.
209 14
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
Superstition has even, in bygone days, led to the
changing of the capital of the country. Belief in
astronomers has always been very strong in the
Persians. In the sixteenth century the capital
of Persia was Tabriz, but the King, finding him-
self unable to defend the city against the in-
vaders, moved to Kasvin and made it his capital,
which it remained until the reign of Shah Abbas
the Great. This King was assured that the stars
were unfavourable to that city, and if he per-
sisted in living there great misfortunes would
befall him. Very much frightened, the Shah
moved his capital to Ispahan, and consoled himself
with the thought that to create a new city would
do more towards immortalizing his memory than
anything else. Teheran only became the capital
of Persia when the throne of Persia came into
the possession of the Kadjar tribe, it being nearer
their own country than Ispahan.
210
CHAPTER XIV
ISLAM AND THE CHURCHES
¥N Teheran — as, in fact, in all Persia, save
perhaps in the Parsee quarters of Kerman
and Yezd — the religion of the Persians now is that
of Ali ; that is to say, an Islamic form of dissent
following the Shiite tradition. Other Mohamme-
dans who are partisans of the pure Sunni tradition
hate the Shiites even more than they hate
Christians. It is almost impossible to convert
a Mohammedan from his religion to Christianity.
The Mussulman who is a fanatic will not
become a Christian because of the difference in
customs and in way of thinking, the ancient
rivalry and hatred of race ; and if he is not a
fanatic there is no one more indifferent to re-
ligious convictions. The Mohammedans look on
Christ as a prophet like Moses.
The Sunnites and Shiites differed over the
successor to the Prophet Mohammed. The former
211 14*
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
think that he left the leading of the faithful to
his lieutenant, the Caliph ; the latter refuse to
admit that Allah would choose out a single man
to lead his flock, and consider that the descendants
of Mohammed would be the natural spiritual suc-
cessors of the Prophet. Thus they acknowledge
the son-in-law of Mohammed as the Imam, or
leader of prayers. The Caliphs and Imams used
to be constantly at war with each other. For
three centuries there were recognized descendants
of Mohammed, and twelve Imams were acknow-
ledged. They all met with violent deaths brought
about by their enemies ; most of them were
poisoned. At one time the Caliph thought of
bringing peace to Islam by a marriage uniting
the Caliphs and Imams, so he gave his daughter
in marriage to the eighth Imam ; but repenting of
his plan he caused his son-in-law to be poisoned.
The last Imam, the twelfth, was only a child
when his father died and he disappeared mysteri-
ously. His followers say he will reappear, and each
time there is a new prophet some of the faithful
believe him to be the twelfth Imam. It is said
that in reality the Caliph thought it better to
get rid of the family, and caused him to disappear.
The entire family was not then disposed of, how-
212
ISLAM AND THE CHURCHES
ever. There are still some descendants of All,
Imam Zadehs, that is, sons of Imams.
At the time of the first Sefevi king, Shah Ismail,
who reigned in the beginning of the sixteenth
century, the dissenting religion of the Shia sect
became the national religion of Persia. This was
owing to the fact that, firstly, Shah Ismail was the
son of an Imam Zadeh ; and secondly, Hassan,
grandson of Mohammed and son of Ali, had married
the daughter of the last Sassanide king, that
dynasty which reigned over Persia from A.D. 250
to A.D. 640, and claimed descent from the Ache-
minides (650-330 B.C.), thus mixing the blood
of the old dynasties with that of Mohammed. Shah
Ismail discovered he was connected with the
Sassanides, and was thus easily acknowledged
the leader of the Shia sect, and nominated for
his capital the High-Priest who was recognized
by all the Shias. When the Kadjars took the
throne of Persia they could not pretend to be
related to Mohammed, and therefore could not
name a High-Priest. All they could do was to
nominate a priest to preach in the royal mosques,
but these priests have little influence. All the
religious power is in the hands of the free clergy
now, and a fropos of this, at the coronation of
213
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
Mohammed Ali, in order to prevent a dispute
between the official and free clergy, the privilege
of placing the tiara on the sovereign's head, which
belonged originally to the priests, was taken from
them, and the tiara was placed on the Shah's head
by the Prime Minister.
The free clergy in the holy towns of Arabia
like Nedjef Kerbela and Kazemein, where some
of the Imams are buried, act as judges in cases put
before them by the pilgrims, and they are strong
enough to resist all other authority.
There are but few feast days in the Shia religion.
The holidays are kept on days of mourning,
which I have described in another chapter, and
the Shiites show their religious feelings in long
pilgrimages to the tombs of their saints. As a
matter of fact there is no need to go far, as the
massacres of their sects have peopled every corner
of Persia with the tomb of a martyr, but the
pilgrims prefer to go a considerable distance.
These journeys give them a privilege by which
they are recognized as having travelled to holy
places. They are entitled to put the name of
the town they have visited before their own
names ; thus the lucky man who has made a
pilgrimage to Meshed can put Meshti before
214
ISLAM AND THE CHURCHES
his name. A pilgrimage is no easy matter to
undertake ; it means, as a rule, a lot of expense
and great fatigue. It is usually arranged by
a special person who makes this his pro-
fession. Each person pays as much as he can
afford, and the professional agent arranges every-
thing— mules, tents and food. The pilgrimage
usually starts in the spring, in order to allow the
people to reach their homes in the late autumn
and to avoid travelling in the winter months.
The time spent in the holy cities is quite short in
comparison with the time taken to reach them.
Most of the principal cities regarded as sacred
are in Arabia, but those most frequented in Persia
are Meshed and Koum. But with the Shiah,
as with the orthodox Sunni, the greatest
pilgrimage of all is to the tomb of the Prophet
himself at Mecca, and this alone confers upon the
pilgrim the title Hadji.
Although the Shia are more severe than the
Sunni about non-Mohammedans they are more
ready to accept innovations. There are some
who make of Ali, Mohammed's son-in-law, a god,
and these are known as the Ali-Allahis. Then,
again, there are several sects of Dervishes who
get their inspiration from Suffiism — that is to say
215
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
they aim, or are supposed to aim, only at the
higher life, and take no interest in earthly things.
In 1844 a prophet arose who, in spite of his
youth — he was barely twenty-five — found many
disciples even among the older and more serious-
minded men of all classes. This was Ali
Muhammed, better known as the "Bab." The
word Bab means door or gate, and he pro-
claimed himself as the door to knowledge of
a better life. Unhappily he was the cause of a
great deal of trouble ; his followers were perse-
cuted, and on several occasions many were
massacred in cold blood. He himself was arrested,
and, finally, after having been treated as cruelly
as possible, he was shot at Tabriz in 1855. He
nearly escaped, as the first volley fired at him only
loosed his bonds ; had he kept his presence of
mind he could have fled in the direction of the
bazaar. There he would have been safe, and his
cause would have been strengthened by what
would have been regarded as a miracle. But he
was weakened by imprisonment and ill-treatment,
and he fled towards the citadel, where he was
immediately captured and killed. After his death
there followed a discussion among his disciples
as to his successor. Some said the Bab had
216
ISLAM AND THE CHURCHES
designated to succeed him a certain Mirza Yahya,
who, having lost his mother at an early age, had
been brought up by the mother of the chief
follower of the Bab. He had, however, a half-
brother, who also claimed the succession, and
rivalry broke out between their respective
followers. This half-brother of Mirza Yahya is
known as the Behai'ullah, and his disciples in
Teheran are many. When he died he was suc-
ceeded by his son Abdul Bahai, who lived until
1911 at Acre, when he went on tour in Egypt,
Europe and America. The Bahais claim to have
nine million followers, of whom a considerable
number are in America. The Bahais can conform
to other religions and believe chiefly in a pro-
gression of ideas ; as new ideas come, as new
things are invented or discovered, a new prophet
is needed who should not contradict former
prophets, but should improve on their sayings
and doings. For instance, women needed to
be kept in seclusion before men became properly
civilized ; now that men have made progress it is
time to think about the women.
The Bahais count Behai'ullah as greater than
the Bab, who was merely his forerunner, as John
the Baptist was the forerunner of Christ.
217
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
When Nasr-ed-Din Shah was murdered in 1896
the act was put down to the Babis, and a terrible
persecution began against that sect, which reached
its height in 1902. At one time the councillors of
the Shah conceived the horrible idea of giving
any Babi they captured to a great personage,
when His Majesty would be able to judge of their
fidelity and loyalty to him by the tortures they
would cause to be inflicted on their prisoners.
One can imagine the horrors that took place, the
tortures that were inflicted. But even this did
not suppress Babism. I was talking to a Persian
the other day, and he told me that lately the
Babis had suffered much less persecution, and
since this was the case the sect was dying out
rapidly. I do not know, however, if this is
really so.
One of the Bab's great ideas was to place women
on a different footing, to give them a place in
the world, and to raise them to a higher place
in the regard of the men. He strongly con-
demned polygamy and divorce, and recommended
his followers to be kind to their women and
children. He has naturally many followers among
the fair sex.
218
ISLAM AND THE CHURCHES
CHURCHES
The Persians will not allow anyone but
Mohammedans to visit their mosques. Many
Europeans have tried to enter the principal
mosque in Teheran, but I have not heard of
anyone succeeding.
There are, however, churches of all sorts of
denominations in Teheran, so that everyone can
go to their own place of worship. A special
feature of all the churches here is that there are
nearly always schools attached to them.
The Roman Catholic Church is under the pro-
tection of the French ; they have two churches,
one in town and one up country. There were
Roman Catholic missions in Persia from the end
of the sixteenth century until the invasion of
the Afghans, then they disappeared. At the
beginning of the nineteenth century a few
Roman Catholic families were found living in
Persia, so priests were sent to minister to them
in different parts of the country, and in 1840
the Lazarists started a mission at Ourmiah. It
is there that they have established their head-
quarters.
219
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
In 1901 the Lazarists came to Teheran and
started the school which is attached to the church,
which has two hundred pupils, some of them
being Mohammedans. Before 1901 there was no
church. In 1904 the Sisters of Charity established
a girls' orphanage ; there is of course a small
chapel attached and the Lazarists say mass there
on Sundays.
The Caldeens use the same church as the
Roman Catholics, and there is very little difference
between the services, except that the Caldeens
say mass in their own language instead of in
Latin.
The Protestants use the American Missionary
Church, which is, I fancy, Presbyterian ; and the
Russians have a chapel in their Legation, to which
they go when there is a priest, but all this summer
he has been away on leave and there has been no
service.
The Jews, of whom there are a good many in
Teheran, live in a quarter of their own ; they have
several synagogues, and two schools for girls and
boys alike ; one is the Jewish Alliance, founded
in 1898, and has branches in several other towns,
the other is the London Jewish Society. The
houses in the Jewish quarter are built on a different
220
ISLAM AND THE CHURCHES
model to the ordinary Persian ones ; they have
very narrow entrances, because their owners live
in perpetual fear of being massacred, and there-
fore try to build their houses with a view to
barricading them easily.
The Parsees, or Guebres, as they are called, are
the most ancient people of Persia, but there are
very few left in Teheran. Some of the richest
people here, however, are Parsees. In order to
preserve their religion and to prevent it dying
out altogether they have a school, but I believe
there are not many pupils. Most of the Parsees
are gardeners ; it is a profession that goes well
with their religion.
I was reading a book on Persia the other day ;
it was published in the early eighties, and it stated
that the Parsees were only allowed to ride on
donkeys, horses and mules being considered too
good for them, and that when they met a Moham-
medan they were obliged to dismount until he
had passed them.
It also said that they were forced to wear a
special colour, so that they were easy to distin-
guish from the faithful.
As far as I can discover, these customs no longer
exist ; the only remnant of them being that the
221
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
Guebres women usually wear red ; they do not
mind their faces being seen.
The Parsees have always been an object of
hatred to the Mohammedans ; but nevertheless
I cannot find that they have ever been molested
in any way ; I have been told that this is owing
to a letter given them by AH, who promised them
protection.
The Parsee marriages are nearly always between
relatives ; this, however, does not seem to have
had any bad effect on the race ; they are usually
tall, well-set-up people.
Their disposal of the dead is peculiar ; they take
the dying person out of the house and let him
breathe his last in the open air. They have
what they call a "Tower of Silence" near
Teheran, where they take their dead, and there
they leave them to be devoured by the birds of
prey.
The Parsees in Persia are no longer what they
used to be, and even their religion has suffered
many modifications.
There are a good many Armenians in Teheran,
nearly all under Russian or Turkish protection ;
they are all engaged in commerce here, and very
clever and successful they are at it. In fact, the
222
Rhaye.
The Tower of Silenc
[To face p. 222:
ISLAM AND THE CHURCHES
following anecdote, which I have taken from a
book by Claude Farrere, depicts them well :
" When Allah had finished making the world,
He got a big cauldron full of honesty and He
called all the people to Him to give each of them
a share.
. "The first to arrive were the faithful followers
of Islam, because they lived nearest to Him ;
they received half the contents of the cauldron
as their part of honesty. Then the Christians
came, and they were given nearly all that was
left, and there only remained a few scrapings.
These were given to the Jews, who arrived breath-
less with the haste that they had made. Finally,
when the Armenians reached Allah the cauldron
was empty and they got nothing."
There is another sect of people to be found
in Teheran, who are also very ancient and are
rapidly dying out ; these are the Nestorians, but
they are said to be going over to the Russian
Orthodox Church.
223
CHAPTER XV
A SKETCH OF RECENT EVENTS IN PERSIA
^WTITHOUT wishing to criticize either Persia
or her neighbours, I should like to mention
a few of the historical facts of the last five years.
The Revolutions of 1906 and 1909 have been
fully described by so many different authors,
that I will do no more than recall them to mind ;
but I think that a short account of the historical
events of 1911 and the beginning of 1912 will
not be without interest.
The first Revolution took place in 1906, and
was brought about by the Persian people them-
selves. They objected to Ain-ed-Dowleh (who
was then Grand Vizier), insisted on his dismissal,
and clamoured loudly for a Constitution ; as this
was not granted them at once, the chief merchants,
to the number of fourteen thousand, appealed to
the British Legation and made a formal demon-
stration against the Shah by taking " bast " in
224
A SKETCH OF RECENT EVENTS IN PERSIA
the British Legation for some days, until their
demands were complied with. Taking " bast "
means seeking protection from danger ; but the
Persians often do it as a political demonstration.
Mouzaifer-ed-Din Shah was at this moment
dying, though still at the head of affairs, and one
of his last official acts was the granting of the
Constitution to his people. It was made public
by the following decree :
" God Almighty having entrusted into our
hands the task of leading the people of Iran into
the ways of progress and happiness, and having
chosen Our August self to safeguard the rights
of our faithful subjects, it is our intention, in
order to procure the well-being of the inhabitants
of our kingdom and to consolidate the basis of our
Government, to give all our attention to the study
of necessary and gradual reform.
" We have decided to create a National
Assembly in the Capital, composed of Deputies
who are to be taken from the Ulemas, Kadjar
Princes, high dignitaries, people and landowners,
and tradespeople and merchants.
" This Assembly will have, as mission, to under-
take to examine attentively, and to deliberate on,
all questions relating to the interest of the Govern-
225 15
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
ment and the Empire. It will give its collabora-
tion to the Ministers to help to realize reforms
necessary to the welfare of Persia.
" The Members of the Assembly will be able,
in all confidence and security, to bring to our
knowledge, through the medium of the Grand
Vizier, the decisions to which they may come for
the good of the nation and the Government, or
which concern the interests and general wants of
the inhabitants of the kingdom, in order that
our signature may be affixed and they can be
put in execution.
" We command by this Imperial Decree that
the regulations, and all that is necessary for the
organization of this Assembly, shall be approved
of and arranged for at once, so that a National
Assembly, mainstay of our justice, may meet
immediately and begin to occupy itself with the
affairs of the Empire and the carrying out of the
religious laws.
" We ordain that a copy of our Decree be
brought to the knowledge of the public by means
of printed Proclamations, in order that all the
inhabitants be informed that our intentions aim
only at the welfare of the Government and of
the Persian nation."
226
A SKETCH OF RECENT EVENTS IN PERSIA
There were, as will be seen by the above, six
classes of people eligible for voting : the nobles and
commoners, the clergy and students of theology,
landowners, farmers, and members of trades
guilds. Only Mohammedans were eligible for
election, and they were expected to be well known
in their place of residence, and to have a knowledge
of reading and writing in the Persian language.
Shortly after the Constitution became an estab-
lished fact the Shah's condition became desperate,
and his son, the Valihad, was hastily summoned
from Tabriz. He was proclaimed Regent during
the last days of his father's life, and took the oath
to the Constitution, which he broke three separate
times. At his father's death, in January, 1907,
he succeeded to the throne. In September, 1907,
the Anglo-Russian Agreement was signed, while
the first Medjliss was sitting. In December, 1907,
the Shah made an abortive attempt to get rid of
the Medjliss, and caused Nasr-el-Mulk to be
arrested. However, he was set free through the
intervention of the British Legation, and left for
Europe.
Finding the Medjliss difficult to manage,
Mohamed Ali ordered it to be bombarded in
June, 1908. This was done with the help of the
227 15*
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
Persian Cossack Brigade, which was commanded
by Russian officers.
What may be called a civil war then broke out.
The Nationalists fought against the Shah's
adherents all the summer of 1908 in Tabriz, and
the latter were finally expelled from there in the
late autumn. The Shah's forces then started to
besiege the town ; this siege lasted three months,
and at the end of April, 1909, the Russian troops
entered.
In May the English and Russians succeeded
in inducing the Shah to revive the Constitution,
and in July the new electoral law came into force.
This law differed from the first in that those
eligible to vote not only had to be able to read
and write Persian, but they must also have reached
the age of twenty, and were expected to possess
property to the amount of two hundred and fifty
tomans, or to be in receipt of a yearly income, or
to be earning fifty tomans a year.
On July the I3th, 1909, the Nationalist force
from Resht, and the Bakhtiari from Ispahan,
converged on Teheran, and after three days'
street fighting the Shah was obliged to abdicate ;
he took refuge in the Russian Legation. His
second son, Ahmed Mirza, was placed on the
228
A SKETCH OF RECENT EVENTS IN PERSIA
throne, and the chief of the Kadjar tribe, Azad-
el-Mulk, was made Regent. Azad-el-Mulk died
in September, 1910, and the Regency was then
offered to Nasr-el-Mulk, formerly Finance Minister,
who was then in Europe. He was with difficulty
persuaded to accept this position, but finally
returned to Persia in 1911 ; the following month
he took the oath of Regency.
At this moment the finances of Persia were in a
sad state, and the Medjliss applied to the American
Government for someone to help to reorganize
them. The American Government chose Mr.
Shuster, who had formerly been in the Philip-
pines, but it undertook no responsibility for him.
Mr. Shuster arrived in May, and immediately
gained the confidence of the Medjliss, who in-
vested him with full power as Treasurer-General.
The Sipahdar, who was Prime Minister at this
time, then began to get uneasy, feeling certain
he would suffer under the reform ; so, on coming
out of the Medjliss one day, he ordered his coach-
man " to drive to Europe." He only went as
far as Resht, however, and, on the insistence of
his friends, he returned to Teheran and prepared
to resume office. But at this moment a piece of
news startled Europe and Persia : the ex-Shah,
229
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
Mohamed Ali, had landed in Gumeshteppe on
July the 1 8th. The Sipahdar was accused by his
enemies of being in connivance with the ex-Shah,
and was forced to resign. The Medjliss appointed
in his place the head of the Bakhtiari tribe, Samsam-
es-Saltaneh, who at once formed a new Cabinet, and
a proposal was made to put a price of one hundred
thousand tomans on the ex-Shah's head ; this
was agreed to by the Medjliss.
The ex-Shah's forces advanced in two divisions ;
he himself accompanied one by Barferush and
Savad Kuh. Sardar Arshed led the other, with
two thousand Turkomans, by Damghan and
Semnan to Imam Zade Jaffar, near Verameen.
There an engagement took place ; the Govern-
ment forces were under Yprem, a Russian-
Armenian exile, and Sardar Bahadur, a Bakhtiari.
Sardar Arshad's army was defeated and he himself
captured and shot. After this reverse the ex-Shah
was defeated at Savad Kuh, and escaped during
a fog to Gumeshteppe with only seven followers.
Salar-ed-Dowleh, the ex-Shah's brother, had
meanwhile been raising an army in Kermanshah,
which was reputed to be twenty thousand strong,
and coming up from the west, moved towards
Teheran ; his nominal intention was to aid his
230
A SKETCH OF RECENT EVENTS IN PERSIA
brother to regain the throne, but it was suspected
that his efforts were all being made to take it
for himself. The victorious leaders, Yprem and
Sardar Bahadur, were at once despatched to
meet the pretender, and at Bagh-i-Shah, a place
between Sultanabad and Teheran, they routed
the advance guard of the pretender's army, which
consisted of no more than six thousand men,
and pursued it to Hamadan, which Salar-ed-Dowleh
hastily evacuated with the rest of his forces.
While Persia was thus trying to set her affairs
in order outside the capital, inside Teheran
Mr. Shuster was actively engaged in reforming
the finance of this distressed country. Of course
he met with many difficulties. His very American
directness itself militated against success in an
oriental country.
The first serious dispute arose over M. Mornard,
a Belgian employed by the Persian Government
as head of the Customs.
The law which had been passed giving Mr.
Shuster full control as Treasurer-General not
unnaturally brought him into contact with
M. Mornard. Mr. Shuster's immediate act was
to request M. Mornard, as Administrator, to place
all Customs receipts, with any balance which he
23*
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
might have at the English and Russian banks,
to his, the Treasurer-General's credit. He asked
him to apply in future to the Treasurer-General
for the funds to carry on the Customs ; owing
to an unfortunate postal delay, M. Mornard
received Mr. Shuster's communication considerably
later than the banks received their instructions ;
M. Mornard attempted to draw money and his
cheques were dishonoured. In the discussion
that ensued, most of the Legations supported
M. Mornard, and it was pointed out that in the
agreement for the consolidation of the Persian
Government's debts to the Russian Bank, it was
definitely stated that the charges for the upkeep
of certain institutions must be paid " a Vinterven-
tion de F administration des douanes" A modus
vivendi was, however, arrived at, and Mr. Shuster
left in M. Mornard's hands many of the payments
under discussion.
No sooner had this incident lost its acute form
than another arose : Mr. Shuster desired to
appoint Major Stokes, the Military Attache at
H.B.M.'s Legation at Teheran, to organize the
gendarmerie which he was proposing to form in
Persia. Russia objected to the appointment of
a person who was accused of having anti-
232
A SKETCH OF RECENT EVENTS IN PERSIA
Russian leanings, and Major Stokes was recalled to
India.
Then came another serious incident.
Shoa-es-Saltaneh, the brother of the ex-Shah,
and righting on his side, possessed three pro-
perties. The Persian Government gave instruc-
tions to Mr. Shuster to have these properties
confiscated, and the Russian Consul-General,
hearing of this order, sent two Russian Consular
officers, with a force of Russian Cossacks, to prevent
its being carried out. The Cossacks arrested the
gendarmes, disarmed them, and took them to
the Russian Consulate ; but they were soon set
free, and subsequently the Russian Cossacks were
withdrawn from the property, and only Persian
Cossacks left on guard. Then Mr. Shuster sent a
large force of gendarmes to take possession, which
gendarmes, the Russian Consul-General stated,
insulted two of his staff who were passing the
principal property. The Russian Government
demanded an apology, which they received. How-
ever, a letter criticizing English and Russian
policy in Persia had already been written by
Mr. Shuster to the Times, and was published
on November the loth. The Russians then
found it necessary to put forward fresh demands,
233
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
and on December the 5th they issued a second
ultimatum, which contained three demands, viz. :
that Mr. Shuster should be dismissed ; the English
and Russian Legations should be consulted before
appointing foreign officials ; an indemnity. They
gave forty-eight hours for the acceptance of this
ultimatum, and the Medjliss flatly refused to
comply.
Fighting broke out simultaneously in Tabriz,
Resht and Enzeli on December the 2ist, and
the Regent, seeing how bad the outlook was,
induced the Medjliss to delegate its powers to a
Commission. The Commission and the Cabinet
together accepted Russia's ultimatum.
The Regent, fearing public opinion when this
should be known, made a coup d'etat and dis-
solved the Medjliss. Police were stationed at
the gates to prevent any attempt at demon-
stration, and a few days later the order for new
elections was signed by the Government. On
Christmas Day Mr. Shuster received his dismissal,
and the acceptance of the Russian ultimatum
became an accomplished fact.
There has been some difficulty in naming a
successor to Mr. Shuster, and the most likely
candidate was M. Mornard, not only on account
234
A SKETCH OF RECENT EVENTS IN PERSIA
of his knowledge of things Persian, but also because
he is strongly supported by the English and
Russians. However, to avoid too many diffi-
culties, he was appointed temporarily.
Salar-ed-Dowleh gave a lot of trouble all
through the winter. He took Kermanshah and
kept his army in the neighbourhood, doing much
mischief. In the beginning of March rumours
of atrocities committed by his orders reached us
here ; the banks and business houses in Kerman-
shah were closed for a long time, causing serious
trouble. At the end of March the Russian and
English Consuls in the town were directed by
their Governments to advise Salar-ed-Dowleh
to leave the country, and a pension was even
offered to him, which he refused. The ex-Shah
meanwhile, seeing he could do nothing just now
in Persia, accepted the pension of seventy-five
thousand tomans offered to him, and left Persia ;
this was a decrease of twenty-five thousand tomans
on what he was getting before. His followers
were all paid off by the Persian Government
with the money lent by Russia and England for
that purpose.
Salar-ed-Dowleh, finding that his brother had
left the country, allied himself to some tribes
235
PEEPS INTO PERSIA
south of Kermanshah, and tried to proclaim himself
Shah. The Government sent troops against him
in the charge of Firman Firma, but they were
defeated, and the rebels advanced towards
Ramadan. The Government then sent a small
force against him, headed by Yprem, which gained
a decisive victory in the middle of May, but their
leader was killed. There were many versions as
to how he met his death, and, as a matter of fact,
the truth is even now not known for certain.
The version generally accepted is that after the
great battle Yprem was walking near a fort
which was thought to be unoccupied, when he
was shot. He had been Constitutional Persia's best
leader since 1909 ; his place will be hard to fill.
His body was brought to Teheran and buried amid
great demonstrations. Though Yprem was an
Armenian, a Mollah made a speech over his grave.
The victory which cost Yprem his life put an end
to Salar-ed-Dowleh's hopes, and he was left with
only a few followers. In the beginning of June
the Government forces under Firman Firma
took Kermanshah and Salar-ed-Dowleh fled. His
actual place of refuge is not known, but is thought
to be Turkey.
Since June M. Mornard has been made
236
A SKETCH OF RECENT EVENTS IN PERSIA
Treasurer-General permanently. At the same
time he retains his place as Administrator-General
of the Customs. Such is the actual situation at
the moment of writing. It cannot be said that
the political prospect is free from clouds, or that
the friends of Persia can view it without misgiving.
But in spite of many mistakes and misfortunes,
Persia has always shown a persistent power of
recuperation ; and perhaps this quality may again
be exemplified. May a happy solution be found
for all her troubles and may peace and prosperity
descend upon her.
237
INDEX
ABBAS, SHAH, 138, 183, 210.
Aftab, or Sun, The Order of the, 116.
Ahmed Mirza, Shah, his levee, 112
et seqq.; his dress, 113; as a
sportsman, 143 ; ascends the throne
of Persia, 228.
Ain-ed-Dowleh, Grand Vizier, 224.
Ali, Mohammed's son-in-law, 214, 215.
Ali, Mohamed, Shah, 227, 230.
Ali Muhammed (The Bab), 216-218.
American High School, 166.
American Mission, The, 165 ; Church,
220.
Animal life in Persia, 129.
Anderoun, The, 60 et seqq., 165.
Arabic language, The, 187.
Arbab Jemshid, 99.
Armenians, 222, 223.
Army, The Persian, 161-163.
Arshed, Sadar, 230.
" Avesta," 189.
Azad-el-Mulk, 229.
BAB, The, see ALI MUHAMMED.
Bahadur, Sadar, 230, 231.
Bahai, Abdul, 217.
Baku, 2-4, 9.
Bala-Bala, 17, 19.
Banks, 160, 161.
Barbers, Persian, 37.
Barbod, 179.
Barferush, 230.
Basil, Dr., 173.
Bath, The Persian, 38.
Bazaar, The, at Resht, 12 ; at
Teheran, 48 et seqq.
Beggars, 27, 40-42.
Behai'ullah, 217.
Belgian Legation, 126.
Belgian Custom House, Enzeli, 9.
Birds, 132.
Biroun, The, 60.
Borchgrave, M. de (Belgian Minister),
26.
Bride, A Persian, 73.
British Legation, 124-126, 172, 224,
225, 227, 232.
CALDEENS, The, 220.
Calendars, Persian, 202-205.
Camels, caravans of, 20 ; sacrifice of,
85 ; habits of, 129.
Carpets, Persian, 32-36.
Caspian Sea, The, 1-5, 176.
Cemetery, A Persian, 57, 58.
Charms, 54.
239
INDEX
Chemists, Persian, 170.
Chesm-Ali, 90.
Children, Persian, 61.
Clubs, 108.
Coachmen, Persian, 16-19.
Constitution established in Persia, 225.
Consulate, English (at Resht), 10-13.
Coppin, Dr., 174.
Cossack Brigade, 128, 171.
Cottons, Persian, 56, 57.
Currency, 158.
Customs, 150, 157, 176.
Cyrus, 90.
DANCERS, Persian, 177.
Daneshver, 190.
Daria-o-noor, The Shah's diamond,
114.
Darius, 90.
Decorations, 115-116.
Dervishes, 40.
Dinner-parties, n8.
Dochan Tepe Gate, The, 89, 90.
Doctors of medicine, 170.
Dogs, pariah, 28, 138.
Dowlat Gate, 92.
Dress and clothing, Native, 39, 56,
64,71-73, 103, in etseqq.
Dust, Persian, 22.
EDUCATION, 61, 164 et seqq.
Elburz, 140.
Enzeli, i, 3-6, 137, 140, 174.
FAMILY life in Persia, 64.
Farobi, 179.
Farrere, Claude, 223.
Fath Ali Shah, 90, 114, 115.
Ferdousi, 179, 188, 190, 191.
Fish, 137.
FitzGerald, Edward, 192.
Flowers, see GARDENS.
Food, Persian, n, 71, 103, in, 136,
I37-
French Legation, 122.
Fruit, 98.
Furniture, Persian, 31, 63.
GABRA AGHA MOSQUE, 58.
Cachet, Dr., 169.
Galley, Dr., 169.
Game, 141.
Gardens, Persian, 28, 89 et seqq., 96
et seqq.
Gate, Dochan Tepe, 89, 90.
Gates, Dowlat, 92.
Haniabad, 91.
Kasvin, 97, 102.
Shah-Abdul-Azim, 91.
Genghis Khan, 184, 197.
Georges, Dr., 174.
German Legation, 109, 123, 124.
German School, The, 167.
Griboedov, M., 127.
Gulahek, 95, 118, 120, 124, 128.
" Gulistan," or Garden of Roses, by
Saadi, 195.
HAFIZ, 96.
Hairdressing, 37, 38, 72.
Haniabad Gate, The, 91.
Hassan, 79.
Hawking, 140, 142.
Horses, Gifts of, 25 5 Persian, 138.
Hospitals, 169 et seqq.
Hossein, 198.
Hotels, Persian, 7, 8, 17, 31.
Houses in Teheran, 28, 30.
240
INDEX
Hulaku Khan, 182.
Hussein, 79.
I MAN ZADE SALEK, The, 94.
Imans, The, 212,213.
Insects, 135.
Ismail, Shah, 179, 213.
Ispahan carpets, 34 ; troops at, 163 ;
engagement at, 228.
Istekhara, The, 207, 208.
JELAL-ED-DIN ROUMI, his " El Mas-
navi," 196.
Jewellery, 53-55, 57.
Jews, 220-223.
Jordan, Mr., 165.
KAMERAN MIRZA, 97.
Kashan pottery, 182.
Kashan Meshed carpets, 34.
Kasr-i-Ferous, 90.
Kasvin, 8, 21, 22, 163, 210.
Kasvin Gate, 97, 102.
Kebela, 146, 175.
Kerman Carpets, 33 ; pottery, 182 ;
Parsee quarters in, 21 1.
Kermanshah, 90, 175, 235.
Khan, Dr. Ali, 169.
Khan, Dr. Emir, 169.
Khan, Richard, 168.
Khodjindi, his " Baharistan," 197.
Koran, The, 59, 75, 205-209.
Koudoum, 1 6, 17.
Koum, 95.
Kurdistan carpets, 33.
LAMBS, The sacrifice of, 87.
Language, The Persian, 187 ft stqq.
Lar, 1 10, 137.
Lattes, M., 169.
Lazarists in Persia, 219-220.
Leblanc, M., 169.
Legation, Belgian, 126.
- British, 124-126, 172, 224,
225, 227, 232.
French, 122.
German, 109, 123, 124.
Russian, 109, 126-127, 228.
Leve"e, The Shah's, 112 et seqq.
Lion and the Sun, The Order of the,
115-117.
Loti, Pierre, 67.
MAHMOUD GAGNEVI, SULTAN, 191, 197.
Manoucher, 192-195, 198.
Marriage, 69-75, 104.
Medicine and medical schools, 169.
Menagerie at Kasr-i-Ferous, 90.
Mendjil, 17.
Meshed, 214, 215.
Mint, The, 95, 157-161.
Mirza Yahya, 217.
Mohammed, The Prophet, and the
Dervishes, 40 ; and women, 59 ;
commemoration of the death of his
grand-children, Hussein and Hassan,
79 ; sacred history before, 83 ;
fruits recommended to the faithful
by, 98 ; hi« cunning, 209 ; his
descendants, 212.
Mohammed Ali, Shah, 25, 68, 159,
202.
Mohammedan religion, 211.
Moharrem, the month of mourning,
79, 198.
Mollahs, 70, 75, 207.
Mord-ab (Dead Water), 5.
Mornard, M., 231, 232, 236.
241
16
INDEX
Mosques, 219 ; Kasvin, 21 ; Gabra
Agha, 58 ; at Teheran, 219.
Mouzaffer-ed-Din, the late Shah,
81, 89, 96, 119, 143, 157, 207, 225.
Mules, 131.
Mushroom Rock, The, 94.
Music, Persian, 177-179.
Mystery plays, 8 1 et seqq.
NADIR SHAH, 68.
Nain, 181.
Nasr-ed-Din, Shah, builds a pagoda
at Enzeli, 5 ; European influence on,
27 ; and his ambitious daughter,
62 ; introduces ballet skirts for
Persian women, 64 ; builds the
Dochan Tepe Gate, 89 ; his
assassination at Shah-Abdul-Azim,
91, 218 ; uniform instituted by,
114; gift of village to the Rus-
sians, 126 ; his horses, 139 ; intro-
duces postage-stamps, 151.
Nasr-el-Mulk (The Regent), 114, 227,
229, 234.
Nasr-el-Mulk, Fatima (The Regent's
daughter), 105.
Needlework, 104.
Nestorians, 223.
New Year, the Festival of Nov Rooz,
76.
Nijni-Novgorod, 146.
Parseei, 91, 221, 222.
Pascaleh, 92.
Peacock Throne, The, 67.
Peerts, M., 158, 159.
Persepolis, 90.
Persian carpets, 32-36.
Petrez, M., 159.
Pigeon Towers, 134, 135.
Piribazaar, 6-7.
Poetry, Persian, 188-199.
Post-houses, 154-156.
Post in Persia, The, 146 et seqq.
Pottery, Persian, 181-186.
Prime Minister, see THE SIPAHDAR.
Protestants in Persia, 220.
Public Instruction, The Order of, 1 16.
QUANI, 198.
RAMAZAN, the month of fasting, 77,
87, 198.
Regent, see NASR-EL-MULK.
Religious festivals, 76 et seqq. ; teach-
ing, 167 ; superstition, 206.
Resht, 3, 4, 6, 9-13, 140, 228.
Rhaye, 90, 183, 184, 185.
Roads, Persian, 4, 8, 14, 154.
Roman Catholics in Persia, 219.
Rooms, furnishing of Persian, 63.
Roudbar, 17.
Russian Legation, 109, 126, 127, 228.
OMAR KHAYYAM, " The Rubaiyat " of, SAADI, 96, 188, 195.
192. Saddles and bridles, Persian, 25, 55, 56,
Orders and decorations, 114 et seqq. 131.
Salar-ed-Dowleh, 230, 231, 235, 236.
PAINTING, Persian, 179-181. Samsames-Saltaneh, 230.
Palace, Kasvin, 21. Sanitary Council, The, 172 et seqq.
Palace, Royal, 113. Savad Kuh, 230.
242
INDEX
Scheider, Dr., 173, 174.
Schools, 1 66 et seqq.
Scorpions, 135.
Secousse, Mile., 104, 168.
Sefid, River, 17.
Servants, Persian, 32, 87.
Shah (the present), see AHMED
MIRZA.
Shahabad, the Shah's villa, 95, 96,
124.
Shah- Abdul- Azim, 52, 90, 91.
Shia sect, The, 213.
Shiites, The, 211.
Shimran, 92, 124, 159.
Shiraz carpets, 33 ; troops at, 163.
Shoa-es-Saltaneh, 233.
Shooting, 140 et seqq.
Shuster, Mr., 229, 231-234.
Sipahdar (the Prime Minister), 115,
118, 120, 121, 229, 230.
Slaves, 64, 71.
Social life in Teheran, 106 et seqq.
Sophis Kings, The, 21.
Sports in Teheran, 109 ; of the
Persians, 140.
Stamps, postage, 150-151.
Stokes, Major, 232, 233.
Sultanabad, 118-120.
Sunnites, The, 211.
Superstitions, 200 et seqq.
TABARKESH, 119.
Tabriz, 146, 148, 210, 228 ; carpets,
33, 34-
Tajreesh, 78, 92, 94, 136.
Takke-ed-Dowleh theatre, 81.
Talhous Pass, 140.
Tamerlan, 197.
Technical school, 168.
Teheran, the journey from Baku,
i et seqq. ; first impressions of,
25 et seqq. ; plan of the town, the
walls and gates, 27 ; pariah
dogs, 28, 138 5 gardens, 28 ; the
streets, 29, 37 et seqq. ; houses, 28,
30 ; hotels and furniture, 3 1 ;
servants, 32 ; barbers, 37 ; baths,
38 ; dress at, 39 ; Dervishes, 39, 40 ;
beggars, 40-42 ; tea and eating
houses, 42 ; brick-kilns, 42, 43 ;
pedlars, letter-writers and toll-
gates, 44 ; cabs and jugglers, 45 ;
marionettes, 45, 46 ; European
dressmaker in, 65 ; treasures in the
Palace at, 67-69 ; gardens of the
Grand Vizier and Royal Palace in,
99 ; social life in, 106 et seqq. ;
camels in, 129 ; horses in, 139 ;
posts in, 146; troops in, 163;
schools in, 166 et seqq. ; hospitals
in, 169 et seqq. ; Sanitary Council
in, 172 ; becomes capital of Persia,
210; religion in, 211; Jews in,
220 ; engagement in, 228.
Tholozan, Dr., 172, 173.
Tiara of Path Ali Shah, The, 68.
Timsal, The Order of the, 115.
Titles, Persian, 117.
Tochal, The, 93, 140.
Tolls on vehicles, 14.
Tower of Silence, 91, 222.
Travel, Persian women forbidden to,
60, 61.
Travelling in Persia, i et seqq., 154
et seqq.
Turcoman carpets, 34 ; horses, 139.
Turkish Embassy, 122.
Turkish language, The, 187.
243
INDEX
VACCINATION, 174-176.
Vannek, an Armenian village, 92.
WATER, Government sale of, 119.
Wedding, a Persian, 69-75.
Wildfowl, 5, 133.
Wizani, 179.
Women, in the Bazaar, 53 ; as wives,
59 ; of the Anderoun, 60 et seqq.t
103 j forbidden to travel, 61 ;
their dress, 64, 103 ; of the upper
class seldom seen in public, 66 ;
of the Anderoun at the theatre, 82 ;
in the Persian gardens, 98 ; recep-
tions by Persian ladies, 1 10.
YEZD CARPETS, 34; Parsees in, 211.
Yprem, 230, 231, 236.
XERXES, 90.
ZEND JAN, 163.
Zergendah, 128.
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